How My Fiancé Saved My Life

I’ve been on many adventures with my fiancé. I had a dream of going to California since I had never been there before. I made arrangements in November 2018. I booked a place for us to stay. I booked plane tickets. I booked an airbnb on Mulholland Drive. I was looking forward to experiencing California.

I wanted to experience California in a free and easy way. I didn’t want to follow rigid itineraries. We only had one week to enjoy what the state had to offer at that time. There were so many interesting places that we went. I didn’t want the trip to end. I wanted more time to explore.

We were driving a nice rental car. In the middle of the week, I wanted to go to Malibu. I was very adamant about checking out the nice homes and seeing the city for myself. I had seen it pictured in shows on TV so many times. My fiancé was driving us through mountains and valleys to get to Malibu. We noticed smoke in the sky and he questioned what it was. There was a park blocked off with a Smokey The Bear sign that said it was at a high fire danger level. We kept driving then my fiancé convinced me that we should turn around. We went back towards the Pacific Coast Highway. Once we got on the highway, we noticed huge smoke clouds closer. There were people on the side of the road crying in their cars on the phone. There were police directing traffic and stopping people from continuing along the Pacific Coast Highway. Something wasn’t right. We were then all flagged to go towards the other direction towards Los Angeles.

We didn’t know quite what was happening yet. Something major had happened and I was dreading to find out what it was.

We decided to get something to eat. We watched the TV that they had on in the restaurant. There were wildfires going on. Huge wildfires. It was called the Woolsey Fire and Camp Fire. We looked on our phones to research more about them and to avoid those areas entirely. It was shocking. Michigan never experienced wildfires.

I was devastated. We came all the way out to California and I would never experience Malibu and get to see it. California was going through a sort of tragedy of its own.

I was safe. My fiancé was safe. That’s what mattered. In researching more about these fires, we saw people with videos of being stuck in the fire and screaming. It was terrifying to even watch and imagine the difficulties that they had with these large flames around them. I was grateful to be with my partner and to know that we were okay.

These fires were the most deadly and destructive wildfires in California history. Some people got injured. Some people were not so lucky to have escaped and died. Some animals died. It was a tragic time. I learned a lot about gratefulness and felt a genuine gratitude for my life. I still enjoyed California. I thought about what would have happened if we were stuck in the fire. Would we have made it? Whatever the case may be, it wasn’t our time to depart Earth just yet. My fiancé and I flew back home to Michigan watching the fires over the Californian mountains from the plane.