To read more of Todd Martens' article, please click here, 'Survivor's guilt' is real right now in L.A.
Image: source ((Photo illustration by Jim Cooke / Los Angeles Times; photo by Brian van der Brug / Los Angeles Times))
Los Angeles is a place that feels physically and emotionally fractured these days. For tens of thousands who are displaced, routine is a near impossibility. Others carry on with little visible change to their daily life.
Yet that doesn't mean there isn't a heavy inner struggle.
How do you grasp the fact that a sizable part of our city has been decimated, ravaged and left heartbroken while a significant majority remains untouched?
It is a confusing and paralyzing time, and it is, above all else, unfair. Smoke and ash are in the air, and so is survivor's guilt, leaving many unsure how to act or grieve.
"Everything you say feels like it's the wrong thing to say," says Shannon Hunt, 54. Her Central Altadena home is still standing while those nearby are not. An arts teacher, her schoolplace of work, Aveson School of Leaders, is gone.
"Every time I cry, every time I feel broken, I think I don't deserve that, because someone else has it worse," Hunt says. "That's stupid, intellectually. I understand that's not right, but it's how you feel, because these other people have no baby pictures and no Christmas ornaments and they are people that I love. How can I complain?"
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