A Heavily Laden Persimmon Tree
By Fay Gordon
@faygordon16
Here is what I don’t know that winter morning, as I wind my way up the coastal highway: in one month, my marriage will end. Two months after that, I’ll face a cancer recurrence.
For now, on this January morning in 2024, I’m simply on a work trip. The morning felt eerily normal. The island’s lush, slightly humid breeze greeted me at the airport. Awe pinches me with each glance at the coastline. But passing through Maui’s magnificent monkeypod tree tunnel, I wonder, when will I see wildfire damage?
I scan the rental Chevy Malibu radio and wind my way toward Lahaina, fearing the first indication something is off—something suggesting this magical vista is no longer an unmarred haven.
My breath catches. There it is. To my left, a giant car hauler blunders past. In its bed, dozens of burnt cars, crushed like soda cans, are hauled away from the wildfire site. To where? What do you do with hundreds of burnt cars? Where does the loss go? I’m reminded that even paradise isn’t impervious to nature’s unpredictable destruction.
***
A decade earlier, following our wedding, my husband and I set off for our Santa Barbara honeymoon. We borrowed a fancy car for the drive from Los Angeles, the caramel leather seats matched our summer tans. I wore a pink and white gingham sundress, and as we crawled up the 101, I took in his calm smile, the ocean backdrop behind him. This is it, I thought, we’re married. This is our life together.
I was a happy bride. At weddings, guests often toast to the possibility ahead, to adventure and the open horizon. I’m all for that, of course, but as we clinked our champagne glasses, possibility wasn’t on my mind. Certainty was. The security of knowing the two of us, solid in this life together, were the clear answer for my life’s direction.
***
During the Maui 2024 trip, my job was to meet the wildfire helpers—the people who mobilized during disaster —and document their stories. In coffee shops, offices, and daycares, I had the privilege of listening to community leaders. They spoke about driving away from the smoke while calling clients, determined to ensure their people were safe. They gathered quickly, met daily, and worked all hours, consumed with caring for each other.
“Oh, and have you heard of World Central Kitchen?” one volunteer asks, her eyes lighting up. She’s a retiree, and her stories of assisting survivors are harrowing. However, with one mention of Chef Jose Andres’s disaster recovery group, WCK, her entire demeanor changes. She shifts from accounting the fire's destruction to reliving a “beautiful day.” She speaks with purpose, recalling building a field kitchen and feeding survivors.
After witnessing the destruction and listening to so many stories, I still struggle to wrap my mind around the fire’s impact. And yet, after a week, I’m encouraged. We may be facing environmental catastrophe, but community, collaboration—just people being people—gives me hope.
***
It is spring, three months after Maui. “Wobbly” is a generous description for my current state. Driving to a friend’s home, gearing up to share my news, I feel as though I’m moving on a tilt. At a massive eight-lane intersection, waiting for the light, the road appears to shift on its axis, a land slant to one side.
Her family welcomes me in, and I collapse on their sofa. The same cozy buckwheat velvet couch we lounged on as children, I now curl into, still gobsmacked, and unpack my reality. She listens, I talk. Every now and then, her husband pops in—bringing a bagel, a latte, some breadsticks—quiet sustenance so I can keep talking.
What a gift to not be rushed, to tell it slowly. That spring, as divorce and cancer collide, I have no idea if I will ever be on stable ground again. Will my life always feel tilted? Forever wrecked by the implosion of what I had thought was steady—my body, my marriage? As my friend passes me a blanket, and I wrap myself in her comfort and love, I even out a little, just for a moment.
***
Recently, I stumbled on Anne Lamott’s reflections following (another) once-in-a-lifetime wildfire:
“The fire was a sword that cut away all the comfort and treasure in life, the illusion of the solidity of objects, which turns out to not be so solid after all.
We saw devastation, of course, but we also witnessed holiness in the burned world and what was left standing—a fireplace, a heavily laden persimmon tree, pallets of bottled water from out of state, the sky. We saw humanity.”
When the ground I thought was solid turned out to be an illusion, I wasn’t sure I could see beyond the devastation.
Would I also be able to see humanity?
***
Walking into the kitchen, the first thing I notice is my friend, wiping down my kitchen cabinets.
“Sorry,” she says sheepishly, “these were just driving me crazy.” I can see why—weeks (months?) of neglected spills and drying rack drips are splashed all over the door fronts. Initially, I’m mortified. And nauseous. I should note that this friend left four children and a demanding job at home to fly across the country to take care of me during my third chemo round. After all that effort, I wish we were having a fun girl’s weekend. I wish I was in control, managing my home, progressing forward.
Instead, I crawl back into bed. I’m reminded of my vulnerable reality. Control is out the window, and right now, I need help. I hear her pull out the crockpot to make chicken and dumplings, something soothing for my sensitive chemo stomach. I need her care, even if it upsets me to accept it.
Divorce mediation and cancer treatment consume my summer, to the point where I visualize my brain as an iPhone, with DIVORCE and CANCER in place of airplane mode. I switch the green button on and off depending on which way I’m spiraling.
Yet somehow, as the summer progresses, ticking off each chemo round, to my great surprise, I get through each day. I go for walks by the water. I cuddle my sons. My sister and I overanalyze a Real Housewife memoir and the state of my eyebrows. (For the record: Heather Gay is a fantastic writer, and I highly recommend pre-chemo microblading).
The Maui volunteers frequently come to mind during these months. I think of my own World Central Kitchen crew: the school mom, who is also a radiation nurse, leaving a bag of special creams on my porch. The friend who took one look at my gallery wall said, “Oh Fay, you’ve got to update these photos” and then helped me do it. The coworker who gave me tickets to a comedy show, knowing laughter’s power. The rabbi who gently placed a copy of Where Healing Resides into my hands, when I cried in her office. The cards, the calls, the blankets, the meals, the love.
A few days into her visit, I asked another friend why she made the long journey to see me. She looks at me like, Isn’t it obvious? and adds, “Because we’re friends. We show up. I want my daughter to see that when there is a crisis, we are there.”
***
I wake up on New Year’s Day, 2025, cancer-free and divorced. The magnitude of the prior year crosses my mind for a moment, but a curly-topped three-year-old in Bluey jammies is mouth breathing in my face. Time to start the morning.
After a week with my parents for the holidays, my sons and I are facing an eight-hour drive from their house in Southern California to mine in the Bay Area.
I’ve never done the drive on my own.
The shorter route home is dull and prone to traffic, so I opt for the slightly longer, more scenic route. As we drive away, like they always do, my parents wave from their front gate. I roll the windows down so my boys can wave back. I watch it all from the rearview mirror as we make our way out of their street. I’m still getting used to being in the driver's seat, after years as the passenger. I wonder where we’ll stop for lunch. I relish in the power of making that decision.
A few hours in, the boys are snacking on a revolting combination of Veggie Straws and Cinnamon Toast Crunch, but I don’t care because we’re singing Hey Jude and Let it Be, and the sun is dancing on their curls. Their blue eyes beam back at me.
My oldest has questions for every freeway sign, and after a few hours of “How big is LA? Is Camarillo a big city or a small city?,” I hear, “Mama, how big is Santa Barbara?”
All this time on the 101, with the sparkling coast outside my window, and it finally hits me: we’re on my honeymoon route. It’s been ten years since I was on this stretch of road, cradled by the leather seats and the certainty of marriage and youthful health.
Now, after a year of personal devastation, I’m the one driving. My friends, my family, these boys—they were my disaster relief team, the volunteers, the pallets of water from out of state. They are why I kept moving.
The road evens out, and like that persimmon tree, I’m deeply burned but still standing. Uncertain what the future holds but easing into comfort despite that uncertainty.
Because here is what I don’t know, while belting out the Beatles, passing Los Angeles behind: seven days later, a catastrophic fire will erupt near that road. In my life, new stressors will emerge. World Central Kitchen will mobilize in LA, and I will seek my family’s comfort once again.
Maybe the only thing that is ever solid in life is the humanity that shows up.
Guest essay written by Fay Gordon. Fay is a mother, writer and lawyer living in the Bay Area. She has written for Coffee + Crumbs and Kveller, and publishes Making Care on Substack.