{ the lost boys }

Waiting to find out if your house has been demolished by a wildfire is a rather interesting concept. Especially when the embers are being blown by the Santa Ana's miles from where they originated. It's completely hit or miss. One house falls; it's neighbor stands untouched. I guess what my parents have been telling me since I was a kid sadly holds true for the fire victims: Life's not fair. Your friend steals your Barbie...your house burns down...life can leave you feeling cheated in all kinds of ways.

Five of our best guy friends all rented a house together that was smack in the middle of the mandatory evacuation area. Only one of them was home when the memo to hightail it out of there got around, so all that these boys now own are the clothes on their backs and whatever Justin could cram in his Subaru in ten minutes. There's no way to sugar coat it. It totally sucks.

I arrived home early from babysitting only to find four of the five not-yet-officially-homeless-but-might-as-well-be boys pacing in our living room in front of the TV. A few people were in Sarah's room, huddled together on her twin bed watching her TV. That created a nice echo effect as the news reporter's voice reverberated throughout the house. The whole thing was surreal.

The next day, after the loss of their house was more or less confirmed, the pressing question was, What now? No one wanted to say it out loud though. So instead, we did what many women might naturally do in a crisis...we went shopping. Except we dragged the guys with us.

We wanted to help take care of them, so we tried to do the basics: feed them and clothe them. So much had been demanded of them mentally and emotionally over the past couple of days, that even a simple task like picking out a pair of jeans required a lot of effort and direction. During our trek to Ross, all of us girls started pulling jeans off hangers to get the process started, and I asked the guys what sizes they all were. Every one of them twisted around and tried to pull the back tag out of the pants they were currently wearing in order to figure it out. So helpless...it was almost endearing :)