Help Him Recover After Flat Fire

Braxton Holly, a friend of 50 years, lost everything in the Flat Fire near Sisters last week, except the clothes on his back and the old SUV he scrambled to drive away barely in time.

His log home, the antiques, cars, trucks, motorcycles, fine leather beaded jackets, hand-made bows, drums, guitars... small personal treasures of a lifetime that provided comfort after he lost the ability to walk following a medical misadventure a few years back: All gone.

How do you start again at 81? The shock is honest, and real.

Insurance has agreed to pay for a spot at The Lodge in Sisters, a residential care facility. Insurance initially balked at the cost, saying "we won't pay for meals and utilities, he paid for those before the fire."

Yes, that's true. It came out of his monthly Social Security, with help from Meals on Wheels, and friends. The Lodge in Sisters stepped up however, dropping fees so Braxton could get in.

Insurance won't pay for a year's lease anywhere, though, without a signed contract from a contractor to rebuild, a difficult decision to make in four days since the fire, since that first cold night in the SUV in the parking lot of the Cloverdale School under the blanket he received from St. Charles after surgery on his spine.

I offered to pay the insurance company the difference between the maximum his insurance would allow and the cost of the ADA compliant room (planning on help from this GoFundMe). The adjuster sounded offended. "We don't take money!"

Yes they do. If we find Braxton a less expensive place, without meals and utilities, the insurance company will just pay even less. Grind him down to accepting the minimum, in his moment of need, all while saying they want to take care of him.

Insurance also offered less than half of what it will cost to rebuild. They say that low value is his fault, too. I know it's important for a company to make money. I also know that people have to be responsible for the consequences of their decisions.

But sometimes those decisions are forced upon us, like Braxton''s crushed spinal cord that confines him to a wheelchair. Like his having to choose which vehicles to insure (the ones he used,) and lose others to the fire, even if they were more valuable. Like not increasing insurance on the house as property prices and costs skyrocketed around him, sitting in his cabin barely making ends meet while eating donated meals.

"So, hurry up and decide if you're going to rebuild," insurance says, not that Braxton would qualify for a loan from any bank to cover the cost that they won't pay to rebuild what he lost, when he is still trying to find a safe place to look out on his stark, new reality.

Many of us in Sisters are so lucky in what the Flat Fire didn't burn. But not everyone.

~ Erik Dolson