What The Grammys Taught Me About Grief

After the Los Angeles wildfires, the award show was the healing experience I didn't know I needed.

When the Grammys announced its decision to not postpone Sunday’s ceremony after the devastating wildfires that seized Los Angeles, my nose crinkled in disgust. Lives were lost. Entire communities leveled. Thousands remained displaced. Grief and toxic ash hung thick in the air. An opulent award show — for the famous wearing glittering gowns and tailored suits that cost more than what many suffering families had managed to crowdsource for their GoFundMe campaigns — felt gross.

I had zero plans to watch the telecast. But my 13-year-old daughter couldn’t wait for the show. All of her favorite artists — Doechii, Chappell Roan, Raye, Billie Eilish, Sabrina Carpenter — were performing. Any time my teenager wants to hang out with me is welcome. When she asked me to join her on the couch, I happily obliged — plus, I love those artists too.

I missed the opening performance, but I was seated for Eilish and her brother, Finneas. They sang “Birds of a Feather” on a set designed to look like the foothills where they grew up in Northeast LA. Childhood photos of the two in the now-charred canyons where the Eaton Fire began flashed on a backdrop through the song. A hard lump formed in my throat. Only minutes in, and I was blinking back tears.

While I know music has healing properties, I never expected a four-hour televised broadcast to serve as an intensive therapy session for the sorrow I’d been carrying since the fires decimated the city I love and live in.

Though I didn’t lose my house, several friends who lived in Altadena and the Palisades did. The school where my daughter attended from first through sixth grades was razed to the ground. Located only a couple of miles away, Eaton Canyon was a beloved hiking destination for her class. I’d spent weeks looking at photos of our years at Pasadena Waldorf School, trying to reconcile how the campus that housed many of our most cherished memories no longer existed. My heart broke for my daughter’s wonderful teachers and peers.