A few years ago we experienced ravaging wildfires that claimed many thousands of acres of wilderness, as well as countless homes.  Soon the smoke cleared and the ash was washed away. In time, the remnants of that destruction faded and helped create space for re-growth and change.  After nearly a year of being closed, my favorite wilderness park was reopened.  It is a pristine gem that is nestled in a valley touched ‘round about by our close-knit community.  This park can be entered through a north gate that takes adventurers through creeks, oak groves, and fields of wildflowers.  So many are unaware that this treasure exists just outside their back own backdoors.

      Over the years with each passing season the pathways I’ve ridden remained constant yet ever changing.  Let me explain:  The main roads and trails a visitor might experience are approximately six miles, with offshoots here and there to present riders and hikers with more challenges, if they so choose.  Basically, the trails remain in the same locations and are rarely rerouted in small sections due to erosion from the winter rains.  Never in all its years has so much change taken place in our beautiful “Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park.”  The clean-up of trails and rebuilding of fences and bridges was such a daunting task that no one was allowed onto its grounds except the parks service and a select group of specialists who were brought in to make it a safe place once again.  Just the safety issue alone was a huge factor in making this wilderness ready for the thousands who waited impatiently at its gates for what felt like an eternity.   Other then the days it rains when the rangers close the park for a day or two only one other time do I remember the gates being locked for an extended period to protect those who may enter from danger within.

     Over half a decade has passed since a good friend was attacked by a mountain lion while riding a favorite trail.  She survived, thanks to the strength and courage of another friend, strangers, and Heavenly Angels.  Sadness marred the Park’s soil as the body of another mountain biker was found just moments later and fear of the wilderness rose like the awakening of a sleeping monster.
Time has healed and calmed the fears of most.  For those of us who refer to this Park as our home, and have spent more seasons within its walls than most, we anxiously waited to enter our abode and view the damage and change that for so long we had been restricted from seeing.  The opening week was a celebratory event and was attended by thousands.  I was out of the country at that time and wasn’t able to step in and take inventory until several weeks had passed and the quiet, tranquility of its Oak Groves had once again returned.

     On that special day dusk had not yet arrived as the sun was falling to the west creating muted hues that an artist’s eye savors.  As I entered its groves, the light haloed the branches of the mighty Oaks.  I was home again!  On this day I rode its trails with deep gratitude and thanksgiving for what had been preserved and changes that had been created.  Never before had I noticed such change to its landscape, to its hillsides, and to the ground below my tracks.  In some areas that had been so scorched by the heat of the blazing inferno, all that remained of the previous life upon it’s slopes were blackened skeletons of shrubs, bushes, and trees.

     There was an eerie beauty to this canvas, having a haunting resemblance to a moonscape; void of any warmth or color.  Only from a distance, however, did this world appear gray and lifeless.  As one brought their sights in closer to the ground, where in the past lay underbrush, a carpet of brilliant green life now blankets the floor.  Not just grasses, but trees, plants, and flowers were springing to life.  I was amazed as to the resilience of Nature.  Many of the hundred-year-old Oaks had blackened trunks and appeared to have died in that destructive event.   Yet, upon closer study, I could see new leaves emerging from their tired branches.  Some of the trees were lost, but many more had survived.  The strong, and some of the fortunate lived to see another season and had made it through their trial by fire.

     I now come to the present. . .to this morning as I watched the news and learned of another firestorm that has hit.  This one, however, has come to a young girl’s life in the form of a challenge, a Firestorm of Change.  As I watched intently I learned of Hannah’s plight and this ten year old child’s fight against an adult disease – breast cancer.  She has stepped into a world all would say she deserves to not be a part of.  As I watched her story unfold, I was saddened for this little one whose emotions were shrouded as she struggled to face this unexpected hand that nature had dealt her.  She has been physically transformed and shall hold those scars for the rest of her life.  Does she know that there will be beauty and a renewal of life that will come from her refiner’s fire, but, most likely, not for now.  As the ashes still fall and the smoke lingers, all she can feel is the pain and agony this transformation is bringing her.

     Several hours have passed and I get a phone call from my dear Aunt Fran.  She is the one who came to be by my side and help through the recovery just a month ago.  She is also the Aunt who acts like a mother yet feels like a sister.  Her news brought a reality of another thing we’ll have in common.  We now share the same disease.  She was told earlier this day that she, too, has breast cancer.   Being less then four weeks shy of a 10-year Lung Cancer survivor, she felt she had beaten the odds.   After all, only around 5% survive that silent monster.  So now, as she watches the strike of the match and knows the pain of the flame, she courageously steps into her fight so to be one who will remain standing strong, as the mighty oaks, once the smoke has cleared.

     As the flames burn around us we do not know the outcome or the very fine details as to who will survive and who will not.  But, one thing is certain. . .there will be new growth and beauty that will rise from the ashes.

     I look back on those days not so long ago and the feelings of loss so many felt as we watched our world burn around us.  Never could we imagine that it would take only a few short seasons for nature to take hold and reclaim her own.  Too often we look at the tragedy in the moment of the emotions rather than in the triumph of the fight.  For now, I choose to look up beyond my branches and take warmth in that light that halos around me in knowing I’ve been given another day.