Out of the Ashes, Family Thankful It Can Say, ‘We Have Each Other’

For as long as she could remember, Faith Kim prepared an elaborate Thanksgiving meal at her home every year, inviting about a dozen relatives and students from her seminary school.

This year, the tradition was interrupted by a fire. But the holiday was no less joyous, its meaning even more appreciated.

“We are just as thankful--no, more,” said Kim, 55. “We have our family. We have each other.”

Kim’s home on La Loma Drive was destroyed in October by the wind-whipped fires that engulfed more than 30 structures in the Lemon Heights neighborhood. By the time the firestorm was brought under control, all that was left of Kim’s home was a wall, a chimney and part of the garage.

Yet Kim, her husband and three daughters do not see loss in the blackened rubble that was once their 5,000-square-foot, high-ceiling stucco home, replete with tennis court and swimming pool.

Rather, from the ashes came an invaluable recognition that faith, love and inner strength and values can overcome all obstacles, said Kim, a Baptist pastor and professor who teaches at seminaries in Brea, Pasadena and San Francisco.

“That is what we have this Thanksgiving. We have knowledge of greater thanks, giving,” Kim said Thursday, sitting in the living room of a three-bedroom apartment that has been her family’s home since the Oct. 21 fires.

A life-size family portrait--miraculously spared by the fire because it hung over a brick fireplace that was not destroyed--stood prominently on blanket-covered boxes set against the wall.

“We are thankful that we have been given this spirit, the spirit [that shows] that we are not beaten, that we are not devastated by the fire,” she added.

Her husband, David Kim, personifies this spirit. Every day since the fire, he visits the ruins of his home to sift through the ashes for family keepsakes.

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A quiet man, Kim said he only wants “to clean up things,” but his daughters said they know better.

“He buys cleaning stuff so he can shine the silver; he buys glue so he could put things back together,” said Sandra Kim, 22. “He is very happy whenever he finds pictures that have not been destroyed.”

David Kim even made his trek on Thanksgiving. “I cleaned some of the plumbing today,” said the 56-year-old orthopedic surgeon, who has a practice in Santa Ana. “I just try to repair as much as I can.”

It will probably be another year at least before their home can be rebuilt, and the Kims are looking to rent larger accommodations than their current apartment.

“I want a place so that my daughters can feel that they are coming home.” Faith Kim said. “We’re not going to put our lives on hold just because of a fire.”

“We will continue to celebrate life just as we had before the fire,” she continued. “And this Thanksgiving Day is no different.”

Well, maybe “just a little different,” she said.

The Kims spent Thursday morning preparing a turkey with all the trimmings, including several Korean side dishes. (“Lots of fattening foods, because they taste the best,” Faith Kim said with a laugh.)

And they invited all their relatives to the gathering, as well as Kim’s students and her daughters’ friends who are living away from their own families.

But because they are currently, in Kim’s words, “living out of boxes”--the apartment is crammed with cartons of pictures, books and dishes salvaged from the house--the clan went over to the home of David Kim’s brother in Irvine for dinner on Thursday evening.

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But being one who values meaning and tradition and who loves to create memories, Kim will cook a second Thanksgiving dinner today for her husband and her daughters.

“I love the wonderful, great aroma of a baking turkey,” Kim said, her eyes reflecting memories of past celebrations. Today’s “meal will be so much more meaningful.”

But instead of eating at their gold-inlaid, burled-wood dining table, which the fire destroyed, the family will be seated around a pine-veneer table with folding chairs.

“It will be fun fitting around this small table,” said Andrea Kim, 23. “Our family is very adaptable.”

And very thankful, Faith Kim said again.

“Our lives are together. Our house can be replaced. Things can be replaced, but lives can never be replaced,” she said. “This Thanksgiving, that is what we are realizing. That is what we are celebrating.”