Chien Yu recently offered to take his 12-year-old son Hudson for a haircut. It seemed like a harmless suggestion, but the shaggy-haired boy’s answer reminded Yu that his two sons are still processing the trauma they’ve endured this year.
The last time they all got haircuts together, Hudson reminded him, was the same day his school and their home of six years burned to the ground.
"I forgot. I was blown away, he remembered," Yu said. "So I just dropped it and went without them."
A Pasadena, California, firefighter, Yu, long ago developed skills to block out such tragedies. But the wildfire that tore through Los Angeles and their Altadena neighborhood early this year literally struck close to home.
"It’s so much more personal now," the 46-year-old said, adding that his firehouse has conducted more mental health check-ins since then. "Our tough journey is far from over."
