My 2025 started not in a burst of fireworks, but with a busted furnace. That was followed by the discovery of a leaking water heater and a flooded basement. Bummer.

But wait! There’s more!

Whoever sealed our chimney off when the house was converted to gas heat back in the 20th century didn’t put in a vent, leaving the frightening possibility of a buildup of carbon dioxide from the malfunctioning furnace. Happy New Year to me!

With just a few hours left in 2024, our insurance company sent my son, our cat and a bunch of our stuff to a nearby extended-stay hotel on Dec. 31, for what we thought would be a three-night adventure of free breakfast and valet service. Nope.

As of Wednesday, we are back in our gas-free, newly warm home after an overwhelmingly stressful two weeks in close quarters with two other living beings.

Toward the end, the adventure had become a straight-up ordeal. I felt helpless and really sorry for myself. To paraphrase the Beach Boys, I felt so broke up. I wanted to go home.

And then Los Angeles started burning down.

Everywhere I looked were images of residents — new and lifelong, wealthy and working class — standing bewildered in front of TV cameras describing how their homes, belongings and memories went up in flames within minutes.

On social media, celebrities have posted updates about how they and their neighbors have lost houses and businesses but are committed to rebuilding. It’s heartbreaking to witness people grieving their shocking, sudden change of circumstance in real time.

This ongoing tragedy immediately helped me put my recent misfortune into stark relief. Even with the inconveniences and potential dangers of my home, I had so many privileges.

I was able to hire professionals who could diagnose the problem before something terrible happened, and had home insurance representatives that acknowledged the risks and covered our housing so we were not homeless, crashing with friends or, if all else had failed, shivering in an increasingly freezing and possibly toxic house.

A house that is still standing.

The irony of this situation is that I am a notorious hotel freak, so much so that I have referred to myself as Old Eloise. I always thought I wanted to live somewhere with a big soft bed I didn’t have to make, a car I didn’t have to park and food I didn’t have to cook. I didn’t realize it’s only fun if you have the option to go home.

Then again, my home was still intact with my belongings safely inside. It was still mine. I am lucky.

On Christmas Day, I read an NBC News story about working families who can no longer afford rent and have taken refuge in tiny rooms in long-term motels because they have nowhere else to live near available jobs and schools. It’s not as easy as saying “just move somewhere else” because moving costs money. They’re just trying to survive.

I remember thinking when I read that article, “I’m so fortunate that if something happened to my home, I would have friends or insurance or something to help.” I had no idea that was going to be tested just a week later.

And I was right. I was greatly inconvenienced and my kid and I need a very long break from each other once everyone has their own rooms again. But we were not hopeless. Just waylaid.

Suffering visits all humans. No one is immune. Nevertheless, some hateful wretches have either declared the Los Angeles fires divine retribution against godless leftists or a rebuke of greedy millionaires who don’t deserve the sympathy of the rest of the country.

First of all, the currently red states of Texas and Florida, the latter of which is my former home, get walloped with hurricanes all the time. Explain that, you people weaponizing God against people you don’t like and judging them. Jesus did not seem to like that.

It’s true that there are many rich people in Los Angeles who are probably more financially able to buy new homes. But some of the hardest-hit areas include places like Altadena, a working-class town whose residents have historically included Black families leaving the South during the Great Migration.

In a population that was left out of assistance like the G.I. Bill because of racial discrimination, the homes that these early residents passed to their descendants represent, in some cases, their entire generational wealth. Now it’s gone.

I ache for those people. My grandfather’s sisters and brother moved to L.A. from Arkansas in the 1940s and built a life there. So far, all of my relatives are accounted for and their homes safe, but so many people can’t say that.

These fires are just the latest massive loss of life, property and infrastructure to natural disasters, such as 2024’s Hurricane Helene. Having the money to rebuild does not mean that it’s OK to have lost that house, those memories and the mementos you’ll never get back. It doesn’t expel the trauma of displacement or of entire communities eliminated in a flash. It’s so weird to qualify sympathy for those at their worst based on whether we think they have more than us. Right now they’ve got nothing. There but for the grace of God go you. You should always remember that.

I look forward to being fully moved back into our house, with all our stuff and our cat warmly and safely ensconced amid our loving clutter and our neighbors. I hope that we are never displaced again. But I’m grateful in the knowledge that if we are, we can probably come home.

I wish everyone could.