Now this small flame of sorrow
reminds me who I am
who I’ve loved and how I would not give up
a half Planck length of love.
Not that loss is easier, no
but god help me, I’ve learned that it’s a gift to burn.
Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

We are nearing the end of fire season here in Sacramento. The days are still warm, but the crisp edge of fall greets me in the early morning when I let our black Lab Lucy out before breakfast, reminding me that the colder weather is coming.

Tired of being constantly interrupted by my phone, I’ve shut off almost all my notifications. The only ones I left on come from Watch Duty, the wildfire mapping app staffed by a small army of volunteer contributors and reporters who watch wilderness camera live streams and track firefighter radio communications in the field. I got the app to be sure I didn’t miss an early warning near me, but it led me to start monitoring fires all over the West, hoping to find them shrinking in size or at least more contained since the last time I checked.

Up north, Canada continues to burn. Their 2024 fire season was kindled by the wildfires of the prior year. Although seemingly extinguished, then covered in snow, 150 of the 2023 wildfires smoldered out of sight, only to reignite in the early spring.

Scientists call this underground phenomenon zombie fires. Like their namesake, they rise from the dead after spending the winter deep underground. During their hibernation, they burn below ground, feasting on dead plant debris, peat, downed trees and root balls. Once the snow melts and the top layer of the earth dries, zombie fires return to the surface. Fueled by spring winds, they re-ignite and spread rapidly. Difficult to detect, they destroy delicate ecosystems and impede the regeneration that normally comes after a forest chars.

I first heard the term zombie fire when memoirist Jeannine Ouellette wrote about her youngest child’s foster son “rekindling the old embers” of Jeannine’s experiences of childhood trauma and parental abandonment. The way we carry memories in our cells, memories that can suddenly burn hot years later in response to the right igniter.

I thought I had done the work to extinguish most of my internal fires and had built firebreaks around the ones that remained. Then 2024 arrived, bringing with it the revelation that there is still work left to do and the demand that I do it under the oppressive gray cloud of the ten-year anniversary of Jimmy’s death, which we marked in mid-February. I tried distracting myself, filling my time with projects, powering through, but none of it worked. My work commitments fell away in the early part of the year, a new project failed to launch, leaving me holed up in a too quiet office with Lucy asleep at my feet and too much time on my hands. Most of those winter afternoons, I fell asleep in my desk chair, craving the only surefire escape I could find.

I had worked so hard to stuff down what I didn’t want to accept, thinking that limited airtime and a lack of light would be enough to contain it. But when my melancholy wouldn’t ease, I realized that the only way forward was to sit in the middle of my grief and let it smolder. To square up to the stone cold truth of Jimmy’s absence and everything that’s been lost instead of allowing my thoughts to dance away in denial. To trust that knowing I would not give up a day of being Jimmy’s mom, even now, would be enough to keep me from being engulfed by the pain.

These holdover fires have been hard to contend with, burning as they do below the surface. It was so easy to convince myself that I had fully faced Jimmy’s death, only to find myself flailing when forced to acknowledge the searing reality of his decade long absence.

Six months out from the ten year anniversary, the days are gentler now. A few scattered zombie fires still remain, lurking below my conscious, waiting patiently for a memory or trigger to relight. I kid myself that I’ll be prepared to extinguish them as soon as they flare up, all the while knowing I probably won’t as whatever sets them off will likely be something I won’t see coming.

I feel stronger now, more resilient, despite being laid low. I wanted so desperately to get my pain under control, only to realize that the fires of grief never go out. Linked as they are to the depths of our love, they destroy and create, lay bare and then reveal previously unseen paths to growth and a different life. I spent years trying to make something okay that never will be. Fully acknowledging the unfairness has allowed me hold fast to the precious days I got with Jimmy and wrap myself in them as a protective blanket, especially on the days that burn.