Pearl Drive Heroes

Having neighbors within arm's reach of our house is new for us, as many of you already know. We're pretty independent, and we just take care of things ourselves, so living partially secluded in the country for so many years fit us fine. But this week, we learned what it means to live in a village.


We live on a great block in Murrieta. Nice people, lots of kids, pretty quiet. And fortunately for us, we've hit it off well with the neighbors directly on either side of us. They're kind, open, giving, and now they are also heroes to us. 

We had a fire in our house. The flames stayed confined to the garage, but the smoke got into the entire house. We were at the neighbors for a birthday party when it happened, and by the time someone heard the smoke alarms, there was black smoke pouring out of our garage. 


All the neighbors came. One of them grabbed the hose, (putting himself at great risk!) and started dousing the flames even though he could hardly see through the black smoke. Others ran into our house and grabbed pets, computers, iPhones, my purse, and the container of cookies on the counter (more on that one later...). Then the neighbors stayed with us until the fireman left, making sure we knew they would do anything we needed to help us. 

While the fireman were there, so many of the neighbors put an arm around us to let us know they were behind us, or patted Fritz on the back. And when we couldn't stay in our house, they put us up in their home (thanks Amber, Joe, and your entire family for squeezing us in!). Another neighbor thought to take photos for us while it was happening to document it all for insurance (thanks, Shannon!). And the next day, we had calls, notes, and people stopping by telling us not to hesitate to call if we need anything.

This is what is left of the old
dishwasher where a battery
charger for a remote control
toy was sitting when it
malfunctioned and caught on fire. 

This is definitely one of those times when it's better to be surrounded by people who will pull together for you when you need it. I know the people in the country do the same, but where we used to live (on 70 acres surrounded by national forest), no one would have even known if our house was on fire until we were through the worst of it (once known, though, everyone would have come to offer what they could).


So, cheers to Pearl Drive! Thanks for showing us what it means to be part of a neighborhood.We feel very fortunate to have picked the street we did. And we can't wait to get back into our house and back to our neighborhood!


P.S. - The cookie story really has to be told: Our neighbor's brothers ran into the house to help me grab things, and one of them saw my purse and my phone on the kitchen counter, and next to them were cookies in a Tupperware container, so in the frenzy he grabbed those too. When we were all outside with our arms full of computers, briefcases, purses etc, every one looked at the cookies with a puzzled expression. Nikko (or was it Nathan? It's all such a blur!) just smiled and said "I didn't want them to go to waste. They looked too good!" It was the laugh we all needed, and every last one of the cookies was gone before the night was out.