David was a theology student there, while working in a coffee shop on campus (it still serves coffee and other delicacies but on the Grand Place in Tournai, at the new “Baba”).
This villa where they spent a lot of time was unfortunately wiped off the map among many houses, as they learned through their network still ensuring a very active bridge between old Europe and the New World.
“We were shocked, stunned, stunned. We have a very strong emotional bond with California and we were very touched by this news”
“We made friends at the time and have stayed in touch with them over the past ten years. One of them communicated some worrying news and we wondered…
At the beginning, we followed these fires from afar and it was through further information that we discovered the extent of the disaster. We gradually learned in recent days that many friends had lost their homes, 95% of this part having burned down.”
“Out of 5 or 6 emails sent to friends there, 4 to 5 replied that they had lost their house.”
And their fear was verified when they found out: “their” villa of happy days is one of those that no longer exists.
“The lady who lived there was my colleague. We call her ‘Aunt Jane’. We became friends and remained so.
As she is English, when she went to see her family in Europe, we did house sitting, we looked after her villa.
But we also went there for Thanksgiving, for Christmas dinner, for her husband’s Mexican food, for the pool… We really spent a lot of time there.”
Returned in August 2023 without ever daring to return…
Having to leave the West Coast was tough, which is why the couple has never returned since. Knowing that part of this past no longer awaits them if they return one day is even more painful today.
“I’m so nostalgic for that time and I came back with such good memories of those three years that I’m afraid it would hurt me to go there only on vacation and not to live there againbreathes Mélodie, completed by David in tune: “If we were told tomorrow to leave everything behind and live there again, we would be able to do it. Leaving Los Angeles was hard and the wound is still open…”
“When we see in the media the streets we know and which are devastated, it’s horrible, it’s also a part of our heart that burns…”
A couple who also observe a state of mind specific to Americans.
“All our friends volunteer: they help, they cook… It’s amazing and beautiful to see everything that’s coming together”says Mélodie, supplemented by her husband: “There is an American resilience, with incredible aid and fundraising. We told Jane that it was horrible and it was “We are going to get back up, rebuild ourselves” that she replied to us in first place.
It’s clearly in their philosophy. They also say “Home is where the heart is”, the home is where our heart is…”
A Tournaisienne unharmed there
If they returned, we know that at least one Tournaisian living in Los Angeles, married to an American, did not lose everything.
The photographer Sophie Gransard, whom we have not been able to contact until now, communicated in recent hours on the Instagram network that she was well and that she had not lost her roof.
