By Katy Sweeny
A Lakeport woman”s home was engulfed in flames Aug. 11. Firefighters battled the blaze, shooting water into her windows without panes and her eves charred black. Wearing masks and using oxygen tanks, firemen entered the home with hoses, eventually tossing out of the windows some of the burned remains, including bedsprings. Left over she had her electric wheelchair, two vans, one of which was in working condition, and a bunch of items she planned to get rid of in a yard sale.
Pat Kacharos walked over to me, knowing full-well I was a reporter for the newspaper. Wearing khakis, a polo, slipper shoes, a press pass and a Canon camera, I stood out among the firefighters in full gear. She smiled as she walked up to me. Kacharos gave me her name and said she wouldn”t mind answering my questions. She said she wasn”t upset about losing her possessions in the fire, except for her mother”s photos.
“The rest of it, you can”t cry over stuff,” Kacharos said. “My cat, I”m worried about my cat. I think the cat is smart enough to get away.”
The cat came back, healthy, by the way.
Kacharos gave me funny quotes, including some other people might find embarrassing. “But my underwear is all burnt up,” she said. “I”m going to have to go to Walmart to buy some more.” The next time I saw her, she said she would probably go to Kmart, because she shops with neighboring stores and added she wasn”t sure why Walmart popped out of her mouth.
All that she asked at the fire was that I didn”t take a photo of her in what she was wearing. After shooting more than 100 photos and getting enough information for a story, I walked back to my car thinking I probably wouldn”t run into her again.
Two days later, I walked into the newsroom after covering a court case and Kacharos was sitting at a desk writing a letter. The managing editor, Mandy Feder, asked me if I remembered her. It took me a second. “Oh, how are you doing?” I asked, worried that she was writing a letter in anger over the underwear quote. But she still wasn”t upset. She came in to write a thank you letter to the people who helped her, the man who got her out of the trailer, the firefighters, community members and even me.
Kacharos was also getting ready for her yard sale, which she said she didn”t have the energy to run and planned to leave a jar for people to drop in money for items they took. Feder suggested I write another article. So I sat down again with Kacharos, asking her questions at the paper and in front of her burned home.
At one point Kacharos and I were standing just behind the fireline in the walkway to her porch looking at the destruction and she asked me a question. “Do you think I”m frivolous?” she said. I was surprised. “No,” I said. “Because by the questions you”re asking me, I wonder if you think I”m frivolous,” she said. “No, I don”t think frivolous has anything to do with it.”
I apologized and said I didn”t mean to make her feel that way but said I was surprised at how practical she was, how reasonable. She nodded and said she understood. Kacharos said again that she couldn”t change what happened and that all she could do was move on, sell the things she planned to get rid of and try to organize her life.
For the second time, I walked away from Kacharos” burned home, but this time with a feeling of amazement. I don”t think I”ve ever met someone with such a level head at such a chaotic time in his or her life. It”s part of my job to talk to victims of disasters and crimes and get answers without being too much of a vulture. Most people don”t react as Kacharos did.
I hope that others can learn from the grace of Kacharos, to take every hurdle at a stride instead of cursing or crying on the track and blaming the officials or competitors, but I already have. Kacharos, you are a model for humankind.
To quote the gracious Kacharos, here are the first and last lines of her thank you letter.
“I thought everything went up in smoke, but the important stuff didn”t ? Goodness is out there. Believe me, I know for sure.”
Katy Sweeny is a staff reporter for the Record-Bee. She can be reached at kdsweeny@gmail.com or 263-5636, ext. 37.
