By Jamie Myers

Doug and Georgann Howie had only called their neighborhood home for a year.

They moved here to be closer to their children as Georgann continued cancer treatment—a journey she has been on for three years. When she began treatment, doctors told her she only had a year to live.

Three years later, Georgann is still here. But now, she and Doug are facing another kind of loss.

The wildfire destroyed their home and nearly everything they had built around it.

Doug spent 27 years teaching woodshop at Selah High School. Over the years, he collected the tools of his trade—the same tools he continued using in retirement, when woodworking became not a job, but something he simply loved to do.

Every one of those tools is now gone.

Just one week before the fire, Doug had finished building a new shop. Even the new concrete mixer he used while building it now sits among the burned remains. In one photograph, Doug stands alone looking into what had been his tool area—a lifetime of teaching, creating and working reduced to ashes.

Nearby, Doug and Georgann stand with his brother and sister-in-law, looking down into the hollowed-out shell of the basement, pointing toward shapes they can still recognize: what once was a file cabinet, what once was a recliner.

Yet among the devastation, a few pieces of home survived.

In the rubble was a garden stone made for Georgann by her grandson Benjamin when he was an infant. His tiny footprints are still pressed into it beside his name and the words, “I love you, Grandma.”

A decorative rock from their front yard also remained untouched. Family members carried it away from the property—a small piece of the home they could take with them.

And on a remaining fence board behind the house, a neighbor left three words:

“God is good.”

As Doug and Georgann begin figuring out what comes next, American Red Cross volunteers have been a constant presence throughout their neighborhood and even at the hotel where they are staying—bringing supplies, checking on families and repeatedly asking a simple question: What do you need?

“Every time they drive by or we stop at their booths, they ask, ‘What do you need?’” Georgann said. “They have provided us with all the necessary equipment to come on site, and that has been amazing. It’s so encouraging to see the Red Cross around just helping people. I make it a point to thank them all.”

For a couple who moved here seeking more time together and more time with family, the fire has taken much.

But standing arm in arm before the remains of their home, Doug and Georgann still have each other. A beautiful reminder of what’s truly important.

And as they begin the long work of recovery, they are surrounded by a community—and the Red Cross volunteers within it—ready to help them take the next step.