A Loss Is a Loss Is a Loss

Why it's okay to grieve the death of a home.

On April 8, 2023, my family and I were visiting my in-laws whenever I got the call: my Granny’s house had burned down. Everyone living in the house had survived, but the house itself was gone. Only rubble and smoke remained.

It was a strange and surreal bit of news to take in. On one hand, there was a certain level of acceptance that the house that I had once knew intimately was nevermore. On the other hand, there was disbelief: What do you mean ‘gone’? How could the house that held so much intrinsic value be ‘gone’?

Six years prior, my Granny, JoAnn Taylor Hughes, passed away due to health complications in the early morning hours of New Year's Day—one exact month shy of her sixty-ninth birthday.

Our entire immediate family—all three of her daughters and all seven of her granddaughters—had spent Christmas Eve by her side at the hospital in Charleston, South Carolina. Doctors had given us encouraging words about her condition that day, hyping us up by saying that she’d likely be discharged in the next couple of days.

They were wrong.

I remember whispering in her ear how much I loved her and appreciated everything that she had done for me—for my family—over the years. And in complete seriousness, in total Granny style, she jerked her head around to look me straight in the eyes, and, like a detective who had finally cracked the case, she asked with an arrested confidence: “Trina, are you pregnant?” She then quickly proceeded to tell me that she had had a dream last night that I was having a boy.

As I looked into her expecting brown eyes, it pained me to tell her the truth, but I knew the truth was my only option. Watching her face in that moment of intense apprehension almost cajoled me to tell the lie—just to see her smile, to watch her excitement, to make her over-the-moon happy—but like any grandchild of hers, I couldn’t lie to her face. I couldn’t lie to the woman who was built on honesty, love, and humility.

So, I told her the truth: “I’m sorry, Granny. I’m not pregnant.”

It didn’t take them (my two aunts and their families) long after her passing to move in, and we knew that sooner-than-later the house that we once knew, the house that was built by my great-grandfather’s very hands and cared for by my Granny’s, would cease to exist.

We knew they’d destroy it like they had destroyed all of their previous homes.

It was just a matter of time.

***

The fire started on the front porch—some kind of malfunction of the electric heater used to keep the men of the house, the smokers, warm. When I think about that spark, I don’t see the front porch that was. I see the front porch that I knew as a small child where my great-grandmother with her high cheekbones, oversized glasses, and long, French-braided silver hair would sit in that old, wooden rocking chair and teeter back and forth for hours.

“Little Granny,” as we so lovingly called her, would sing old hymns, read her Bible for the millionth time, and instruct the young’uns (like me) how to snap beans or crack pecans. In that fuzzy memory, that screened-in front porch was the safety net that had saved me from the stormy sea that was my own childhood home. It was a place that exuded love, peace, and understanding.

The fact that the fire had started there in that place of all places and on Easter weekend—one of my Granny’s favorite holidays—felt blasphemous.

It felt personal.

Granny and “Little Granny”

The flames made their way into the house through the front door, pouring into the dining area and kitchen, the room that housed full volumes of life stories: celebrations, squabbles, quandaries, and tragedies. The “suppa” table that saw so many meals made with and blessed by loving hands was quickly devoured—just like the homemade biscuits and garden-fresh tomatoes, chicken and dumplings, perlo, collards, field peas, stewed maters, giant lima beans and ham, fried chicken or pork chops, macaroni and cheese, banana pudding, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and nut cake that were once swiftly devoured by hungry mouths.

In a flash, that physical history of love was taken.

I’m sure the fire then spread into the living room where pictures of my great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins covered the wood-paneled walls—people whom I knew well and simultaneously didn’t know well at all.

I can imagine the violent burst of my grandmother’s prized glass curio cabinet along with each individual and deftly-placed figurine: Precious Moments angels, an ornate, crystalline cross or two, ceramic lighthouses from the dollar store down the road. I can also see the incineration of powder-blue carpet that covered the living room floor, the largest open space in the abode where my first-cousin and I used to play “telephone” with an old rotary phone, “dollhouse” with raggedy dolls and real wooden furniture, and “house” beneath a creaky, metal ironing board covered by a worn, floral bedsheet.

The fire would then lick maniacally on each bedroom door and force its way in and through to the three remaining rooms and only bathroom at the back of the house. Little Granny’s old bedroom would be consumed by the red hot, and I can’t help but wonder now what my Granny, a devout Christian, would have thought of this scene of hell in her home, in her sanctuary. I wonder what she would have thought of the flames engulfing and ingesting the picture of Jesus Christ’s praying hands above her bed. And, I wonder how she’d feel about her home’s treatment—the negligence and disrespect of its inherited caretakers.

Would she have been angry, sad, dismayed, accepting? I think all of the above.

I’ve only seen my Granny angry a handful of times in my life, and let me tell you, it scared the shit out of me.

One time, after a particularly explosive argument between my parents, my mom packed us all up along with a basket of freshly-laundered clothes and headed to Granny’s, peeling out of our driveway and speeding down the highway as though her life depended on it. She knew my dad would be following in mad pursuit to “teach her a lesson,” to remind her of her subordination. Of course, she was right, and it didn’t take long after we’d found ourselves safe in her mom’s arms for Dad’s sedan to slide into the front yard. With crazed eyes and spit flying from his mouth, he yelled for my Mama to come out and show her worthless self.

I remember trembling as I sat watching the whole thing unfold from the living room window that was framed by sheer curtains made of lace and dust. Within a moment’s notice, my Granny had retrieved one of her second husband’s hunting guns, cocked it, and pointed the barrel directly at my father, steady and ready, waiting on the steps of her front porch.

The way she spoke to my father made the hair on my skin stand up tall and salute: “Now, you listen here, M————, the cops have already been called. Go on ahead and get back in that car of yours and get on home if you know what’s good for ya. I ain’t afraid to shoot.”

His deranged face quickly dissolved and melted into a face of surrender. He backpedaled to his car door, plopped himself into the driver’s seat, and, without saying a word, he pulled out of the drive and left.

My dad always got the last word, so this course of action was new—revelatory. I remember thinking how brave my grandmother was. I remember thinking that maybe she was the one who held the key and could free us from our cage.

I wish that I could say that that confrontation changed our life trajectory, but it didn’t. We endured another decade or so of abuse, and, like the fury of the fire that took my Granny’s home, we were left with nothing but a trail of smoke and tears.

The fire’s next target was the dilapidated bathroom with its sinking floor, peeling laminate, and musty odor. The blaze showed no mercy and gulped up the smallest room in the house with the same speed equivalent to the lighting of a matchstick to a single square of toilet paper. With one flick of a hot flame, the only reason for recent rest stops between our home in Asheville and my sister’s home in Myrtle Beach was—poof!—gone.

The third bedroom was the last room to be destroyed by the ferocious fire. This was the room where my four siblings and I would share a lumpy queen-sized mattress on weekends when mom just needed a break. I can still remember the buttery-soft, cotton sheets on my skin and the incessant rattle of the ceiling fan overhead, a rattle that became a defining feature in not only my memory but the memories of my siblings, too. I can still remember the relieving breeze and the loud buzzing and chirping of those insane, insomniac insects—the cicadas and crickets—that flowed in through the open window and breathed new life into the cramped space during those suffocatingly warm summer nights. I can still remember hearing (or imagining I’d heard) the rabid Meow! of a bobcat and the subsequent pounding of my heart. I can still remember the low, earnest prayers that Granny recited while on her feeble knees, bedside, laying her hands on the tops of her grandchildren’s heads and kissing their round cheeks before breathlessly saying good night and huffing and puffing her way off the hardwood floor to exit the room.

I can still remember it all, that house—now a place of ruins in Browns Ferry, South Carolina, off Highway 51—positioned between Georgetown and Hemingway. I can still remember that house where I was taught to count my blessings, to keep going when the going gets tough, and above all, to lead with kindness and compassion.

I can still remember, and I hope to not soon forget.

***

It is true what they say: physical possessions can be replaced. Homes can be replaced. But, it is also true that the physical can serve as reminders of the irreplaceable—the people, places, times—and the strong feelings associated.

For the last two weeks, while I have sat with the rest of the world reading the news at night about the L.A. wildfires, my heart has wept for the thousands of people who have lost their affections, their homes, their sanctuaries.

And, as I would read the comments or overhear conversations around town, my heart would turn to mourning the decline of humanity revealed through the malicious and insensitive remarks made by presumably angry people. The way in which our fellow human beings have been so dismissive or accusatory of the loss of someone’s home, their supposed safe space, has been shocking and has reminded me of all the work that still remains, even after years of “human progress.”

When I received the news about my Granny’s house fire, I’ll admit: I was angry.

How could they—those ungrateful, sorry, good-for-nothing freeloaders—have let this happen???

But, after a considerable amount of time and introspection, I realized that I wasn’t just angry at the inhabitants of that home—I was angry with myself. I was angry that I hadn’t saved some of the precious items that were lost, especially since I knew that they’d end up destroyed, one way or another. I was angry that my grandmother died unexpectedly and at such an early age. I was angry that I couldn’t tell my dying grandmother that I was pregnant, that I had let her down in that final exchange of words. I was angry that my children did not get a chance to know her—to really know her—and they never will. I was angry that I didn’t call her more during the selfish era of my twenties. I was angry that I didn’t ask her more questions about her life. I was angry that I couldn’t afford to spend more time with her in those last few years of her life—in those formative years of adulthood and career building. I was angry that I had lost her, and I was angry that we’d all lost her haven.

Anger is a useful emotion.

It tells us that (1) we need to implement a boundary, (2) an emotional need is not being met, (3) the need to acknowledge and express a “vulnerable” feeling, (4) a core value has been compromised, and (5) an old wound needs to be healed.

So, if you’re feeling angry about your life right now or the current state of the world, it’s okay to feel angry. What’s not okay is to seethe in it, to allow it to take over and take down others.

And, for those who have lost their homes and their most prized possessions, it’s okay to grieve. It’s totally justifiable to feel tremendous pain and heartache after such a behemoth of a loss. Focus on you (and your family’s) immediate needs, and ignore the rest of the world.

If there’s anything that I’ve learned from the many earth-shattering ends that I’ve experienced so far in this life—my childhood, a few cross-country moves, deaths of loved ones, my parent’s divorce, my pre-mom identity, my Granny’s home—it’s that no loss necessitates ridicule or comparison or enjoyment.

A loss is a loss is a loss.

***

My youngest daughter, my “Buddha eyes,” turned three on January 17.

And, as much as it makes me cringe, there is truth in the phrase: time flies. As a parent, I’m often left clinging to the most beautiful, fleeting moments, and then at the same time I’m happily bidding adieu to the most challenging, grueling chapters.

Once this dichotomy is illuminated, you soon discover another layer of truth: through our children’s eyes, we get to relive a gone and/or forgotten time of our own lives while also catching a glimpse of the time that has yet to come.

Through my daughter’s eyes, I’m reminded of the sheer and utter delight that is how the sunlight streams into her bedroom in the morning that is oh so warm and gooey and glowy and that makes me think this must be what heaven is like as I crawl into bed and snuggle in between my two waking suns. And then I realize that this is heaven. And then I think about how one day, potentially, my daughter will have this same experience with her own child, and I smile dreaming of that wild and beautiful future.

Through my daughter’s eyes, I’m reminded of the miracle that is a snow day, a day filled with no worries or cares in the world, plus or minus a slip or two on the icy spots of the sidewalk or a bump on the brick retaining wall sledding down the neighbor’s steep drive. I’m reminded of the purity I once knew, even if for a short time.

Through my daughter’s eyes, I’m reminded of the goodness that I experienced at my Granny’s house growing up. I’m reminded of the joy induced by the tickling of her silky-smooth yet bumpy hands. I’m reminded of the calming effect of her saying blessing before dinner or bed. I’m reminded that, even in loss, all is not lost.

Through my daughter’s eyes, I’m reminded of a life relatively free of stress, fear, suffering, and anxiety. I’m reminded that she does not yet know the grief that I know. I’m reminded that she does not yet know the injustice of this world. I’m reminded that she does not yet know its darkness.

Through my daughter’s eyes, I’m reminded of the miracle of life. I’m reminded of its many gifts: hope, grace, beauty, and love. I’m reminded of its transience with each passing year, and I’m reminded of its permanence with each passed-down tradition and written account.

Through my daughter’s eyes, I’m reminded of who I am and who I want to be.

My three-year-old

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