Humanity is Still Here

Or, how the Marshall Fire has renewed my faith in humankind.

The letter Casey wrote to us after rallying folks at Gusto.

I got a text from Casey, an engineer at Gusto who I’d worked with, asking about a hypothetical research project. She wrote:

Little thought went into my response:

I mean, who can get a PS5 right now with all these pandemic-induced supply-chain shortages? Casey acknowledged the message and indicated they’d followup in a few days with more questions.

And, a few days later, more questions came:

I answered:

A week later, she and another engineer, Grex, showed up at our house with two cars full of boxes, and that tear-inducing letter above with gift cards inside. To our mutual amazement, Casey researched how often Target gets PS5 deliveries and when (5:30 AM it turns out), and refreshed their website for 4 days in a row, at 5:30AM, until she found one. In her words, she “button mashed” the Order Now button to beat the inevitable rush for Thursday’s new units. And yes, a PS5 (and controllers) were part of the loot. Wow. Just wow.

Brown.

My good friend, Ryan (who I’ve known since I was 7), organized Brown to help us. Brown is the name we use for the San Diego crew. It’s the name of the soccer team we all played in our adult lives when most of the crew lived there. Our uniforms were brown, and everyone was number 2… So we’re all Brown even though the team disbanded after myriad ACL injuries and small humans moved into our houses.

Ryan rallied the entire crew only days after the fire. And they raised enough money to replace our ski gear. We were floored.

The fundraiser.

Part of the front page of the GoFundMe campaign Jamie launched for us.

My wife’s good friend, Jamie, organized a GoFundMe page for us. She pushed this through to everyone; close friends, friends of friends, people I worked with years ago, people Emily worked with years ago, and people who just wanted to help. The money is amazing, but what moves us is how many individuals contributed.

The meal train.

“Meal train.” Yep, it’s a new term for me, too. Emily’s co-workers signed up for days where they’d bring us food, for three weeks. It’s called a meal train. We haven’t had to cook in a long time. And not having to think about dinner for a family of five is so helpful.

Gift cards.

A substantial pile of gift cards we’re keen to use soon.

Our good friend, Brianne, organized contributions to a Nordstrom’s gift card to help us rebuild our wardrobe. And we already put that card to good use (I love my flannel shirts). Others followed suit giving us cards to all sorts of places that can help us replace what we lost.

Charity.

A letter we received from Circle of Generosity, accompanied by a check.

Circle of Generosity (through the wife of a fraternity brother, Ryan, who I hadn’t spoken to in some time), Red Cross, and Community Foundation of Boulder County all gave to us to help us rebuild and replace what we lost. And they gave meaningful amounts of money ($1,000’s). I had no idea charities like these were out there, or at least that they could help us.

It’s not about the money (although we like the money).

We’ve talked with a lot of our neighbors since the fire, and they recount similar experiences to ours. People we haven’t spoken to in years, long-lost family members, people we don’t know, people we worked with long ago, are all still there.

I’ve talked with hundreds of old acquaintances over text or phone in the days since our house burned down. Some of them pushed beliefs I thought were dividing our country these past few years. I had written them off out of cynicism. And with others, I’d simply lost touch. But after every conversation, universally, people’s humanity has come through. Their desire to help us and give is sincere, regardless of who they voted for. I now know, in a way I’ve never known before, that I have a vast, diverse network I can lean on to help me through my life.

And I think this is what I’m going to anchor on from now on; people’s core humanity. It’s still there. And it’s strong.