Tragedy, Natural Disasters, and Writing

It’s been a difficult month here in southern California. I had joined the international writing community National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) as a way to get the majority of a new novel written. I’ve done this every year for the past three. I was just finishing week one when death and destruction hit my community.

On the 7th, a little after midnight, I saw an alert on my phone of a mass shooting, at a bar about 10 miles from my house. I knew the place—Borderline Bar & Grill—it used to be a restaurant called Charlie Brown’s that we had frequented many years ago. I have an acquaintance who performed there often (she is now pursuing a country music career in Nashville). I watched the terrible news for a couple of hours, but went back to sleep just after I heard that there was an officer down.

Ron Helus funeral. Picture by Markus McDowell.

Around 4:30 am I woke and checked, and saw a tweet that the officer had been killed. I was in shock because I knew him—Sargeant Ron Helus. I’ve known him for 20+ years, and my wife is good friends with his wife. A fellow college student of my daughter’s had been killed, too. The next day, I walked to a freeway bridge, along with thousands of others on 15 bridges, to watch the procession taking his body from the hospital to the morgue. I was when I went back home, seeing the picture and name of my friend on all the national and local TV stations. Tragedies we observe from a distance are always heart-wrenching, but I learned it is a different experience when the images are familiar.

But it didn’t end there. That day, less than twelve hours after the shooting, fires broke out in the area. The low humidity and high winds caused them to spread with ferocity—a perpetual danger because of the geography and climate of the area. While the fire line was only about a mile from my home, the wind blew it away and across from us. But a number of friends and family members had to evacuate. Most were safe, some lost their homes or had damage.

The month ended with the loss of a dear extended family member—one who lived a full and long life, but the loss was acute. I was asked to give a eulogy.

Times like these give us an opportunity re-evaluate and gain some perspective on life—how we live, what we do, and what we consider important. Standing on that bridge with hundreds of people—most of whom did not know Ron—we were a community. No one’s political views matters. As we left, everyone stopped to thank the first responders lined up behind us. No one cared about the issue “police brutality” or “racism” because, in moments like these, we know they are rare and not indicative of the norm. Being offended by certain words or a statue or someone else’s worldview seemed a bit petty. It is not that any of those things are important to address—it’s that in times of peace and prosperity, we have the luxury of being outraged at anything and everything. But when people die, when they give their lives and bodies to save others, when people lose houses and homes and friends and relatives…well, some things are far more important than who we voted for in an election.

The work I do as a writer and an editor is not one of the important things. It pales in comparison to the losses experienced. Yet once the fires are out, people are comforted, money and time offered, the funerals are over, and the rebuilding has begun, writing is what I have been given to do. As I talked with those who were suffering, stood with those honoring Officer Helus, and spoke with those grieving, I know that, potentially, writing can help in its own way. Good writing—real art—should not only entertain, but teach, or inspire, provide insight, or offer new perspectives, and even bring self-examination. Recently passed writer Ursula LeGuin wrote:

We read books to find out who we are. What other people, real or imaginary, do and think and feel…is an essential guide to our understanding of what we ourselves are and may become
Ursula LeGuin

I agree. And so, in between tears and feeble attempts to assist, console, and give hope, I keep writing—with renewed purpose.