Seen enough of these for one lifetime..
With the arrival of Monday, five days since the fire, we continue to be overwhelmed by the love, support, and generosity of friends, family, and strangers. Please please please forgive both this impersonal mass email and the fact that we have not yet responded to your kind words and offers of help. We have had our hands full with mundane items to take care of which, embarrassingly, have left us without enough time (at the moment!) to show you the personal gratitude that we would like. While the boys have remained in Seattle with extended family during the past week, Holly and Joel were fed, clothed, supported, advised, and loved from near and far. We will absolutely thank each one of you personally when we arrive on more stable ground but in the meantime please accept our deepest gratitude for all that you have done personally and the additional help that you have mobilized for us by leveraging your networks. It means the world to us that you have all been so thoughtful when we stumbled and we’re not sure what we have done to deserve it. Indeed, even before this incident, we have been so amazed by the challenges that many of you have overcome—you inspire us to keep a chin up through this inconvenience.
We wanted to send an update to try to field the most frequent questions:
- How bad was it? For those of you who can’t help but slow down and look as you are driving by a car accident (and let’s be honest—that’s all of us!), I have exciting news: we have posted both a video tour and a photo album of the damage. The more observant folks will notice changes in the pictures—they were taken over a number of days (including a set from 2 AM the night of the fire–before the boards were put up). If you have never been to our house, I highly recommend FIRST watching the video of the boys’ recent Superhero-themed birthday party, which we hosted at our house (or see the photos here), both because Holly threw a killer party and also because it sets up a powerful before/after comparison as the party was in all parts of the house. If you live in the Bay Area and want to see the wreckage in person, we’re happy to take you by. If you can learn any lessons from our loss, please do (suggested lessons: don’t use crappy heating systems, know where the fire extinguisher is, personal safety matters more than stuff, wood burns—fast, etc).
- Are you OK? Yes, we’re fine, in large part thanks to the amazing support of friends and family, near and far. Sure, it’s not as comfortable as if we were, you know, at home, but we’ve already started to buy new stuff that works just as well as the old stuff did (like shoes). That said, please don’t make fun of us if you notice us wearing the same clothes with more frequency in the coming weeks.
- Where are you living? We’re in a Hyatt House seven miles from our house, chosen because we have two attached bedrooms with a full kitchen. While we have a TV, there is no DVR, so we’re falling behind on Mad Men and Game of Thrones. Please do not give away any endings. The hotel room is small but cozy for the time being (the boys get back with Holly on Tuesday). I’m sure we’ll be going crazy in a few weeks. We are actively looking for rental houses for 12-24 months within about 5 miles from our house and have some promising leads.
- What’s next? Top priority is finding a more permanent temporary housing solution for the next 12-24 months and an attempt to return to normalcy. Joel is going to return to work on Monday. Holly and the boys return to the bay area on Tuesday, and on Wednesday Avi and Ezra will go to pre-school (the preschool invited Ezra into the “twos program” in light of the circumstances, even though he’s too young). In the background, we’ll be dealing with the insurance company… so far, this has gone decently well and we hope that that continues (I’m looking at YOU, Safeco).
- Do the boys know? Yes. Holly spoke to Avi about it this weekend and Ezra was there, as well. Ezra is two years old and we pretty much figure that “home” is where mom and dad are, so it’s not really an issue. Avi has had the very good fortune of being born into a family that has friends and family all over the country and the opportunity to travel with some frequency (Seattle for 10 days, Boston for a month, San Diego, etc) If he’s somewhere for more than a few days, he considers it a new home anyway. Thus, when told about the fire and that he’d be coming back to yet another home, it didn’t seem to phase him. We’ve got some legos waiting for him (among other toys both him and Ezra). Of course, we don’t claim to be experts and, after all, this IS the first time that we’ve had to tell our kids that their home and all of their belongings were obliterated in a catastrophic fire, so it’s possible that we’re reading them wrong. We’ll be monitoring feelings closely in the coming week.
- What do you need? We are truly doing OK at the moment. The biggest challenges right now are time and comfort (doesn’t sound all that serious when you think of it that way, right?). We are trying to create a normal situation for the boys during our time in the hotel (which may be more than one month). Playdates are much appreciated and thank you to those who have provided delicious meals. We have no space for additional “things” at the moment, so as much as we appreciate it, please don’t try to send stuff. When we find a home to rent, we’ll have more space (though even then, we hope insurance will cover the replacement cost of replacement items). We need to make some new memories, though (and that doesn’t require space in our hotel room!), so we’d love to hang out.
That’s the latest from the West coast Grossmans. We won’t be doing mass emails any more but will continue to post family updates on the Grossman Family West blog. If you are inclined, you can have those updates automatically emailed to you by registering here.
Much love,
Joel, Holly, Avi, and Ezra
