Even though this week’s fires have finally subsided, life will never be the same for many Angelenos. They lost their homes, their businesses, their neighborhoods. At least five families – a tragic number that is likely to rise in the coming days – have lost their loved ones.

Some of these residents and neighbors are my friends. Too many. My heart breaks for her.

For the rest of us – the lucky ones – life has been more surreal than anything these past few days.

Here in Silver Lake, the northeast L.A. neighborhood where I live with my wife and two young children, we watched anxiously from our windows Tuesday evening as the Eaton Fire spread like a burning scar to the foothills of Pasadena , California, 15 miles away.

What we feared most was my parents, who were over seventy years old. You live just 2.5 miles from Eaton Canyon, on the edge of the mandatory evacuation zone. We finally convinced her to stay with us. My wife’s colleague also came with her Cockapoo after the power went out in Pasadena. I slept on the couch with our cat.

I held my breath overnight as the Santa Anas smashed into a cracked old window that I had patched with duct tape. I could see the glass bending with every big gust of wind.

The next morning there was no sunrise – just a cloud of black smoke covering the horizon. I dropped the kids off at school and told them to get masks from the office. An hour later the principal sent an email; School had been canceled. I picked up the children and turned on the television. My wife and I tried to work.

Around this time, a friend who had fled the Eaton fire told me that his daughter’s school was gone – burned down. My brother-in-law drove to Encinitas, California, near San Diego, to prevent the smoke from triggering his boys’ asthma. My parents returned home and hoped for the best.

So far they are safe. There is no immediate danger in Silver Lake either. But the intersections are closed, congesting the adjacent blocks with detour traffic. There are downed lines, fallen trees, damaged transformers and workers at work.

As of Thursday afternoon, power is still out for nearly 200,000 L.A. County residents. Last night another family of four – another of my wife’s colleagues – sought shelter with us because the power was still on.

You are here now. Below the children are building a fort. My wife and her colleague are conducting a Zoom meeting in the living room. The husbands write on laptops with built-in AirPods.

“What’s for lunch?” the children ask.

Outside, the sky is a color I can’t describe: pale gray with a faint pink tinge. Bits of ash fall like snow.