When everything normal just disappears . . .

When Normal Disappears in an Instant

Andrea Lamarsaude, her husband Christophe, and their 13-year-old daughter Emilie were headed home from a One Direction concert. Emilie was starting eighth grade the next day. It was a big night, a memorable one.

But what happened next on that sweltering August evening in 2014 made it one they would never forget.

Heading home

They exited the Dallas North Tollway and navigated toward their quiet neighborhood. As they got closer, police and fire vehicles blocked the streets in every direction. Without thinking, Andrea jumped from the car and started running.

When she finally made it to the cul de sac where their house was located, she stood paralyzed. Her family’s home was engulfed in flames. Their precious three dogs, two cats and pet turtle perished. Only a few items and treasured mementos were saved. Everything else was gone.

The next day

In a state of shock and disbelief, Andrea and her family could only look at what was right in front of them. They went to CVS at midnight and bought toiletries. They called friends and asked to stay with them.

“At first, we were just trying to deal with the logistics,” she remembers. The ordinary demands of life didn’t stop just because everything in her world had changed.

But the stress mounted. They began counseling. They worried about each other. Eventually, Andrea decided to leave her job in marketing communications to be there for her family.

And that decision led her somewhere she never expected.

A new direction

Andrea had always been drawn to art, but her corporate roles left little room for it. Now, in between therapy sessions, she began experimenting with collage. Then she took a few painting courses.

A friend with a large open space where he painted invited her to set up her own creative space there. Within the year, she created 40 unique works of art.

Another close friend then hosted a show for her, and she quickly sold half her collection.

“Something clicked inside me then that this was something I could actually do.”

Over time, she created a studio in their new high-rise apartment, then moved into several shared creative spaces before getting connected with a building owner who wanted to turn a large vacant space into an artist’s gallery. Although she was about to leave for a one-month artist residency in France, Andrea, the building owner, and Christophe worked together to keep the project moving forward.

They ultimately created Art on Main gallery, a vibrant East Dallas community of 23 artists working in a beautiful, light-filled space that not only inspires creativity but draws the public in to view changing exhibitions, watch artists at work and participate in quarterly open studios.

Still wanting to do more, Andrea combined her work as an artist, gallery owner and arts patron with her 25 years of marketing communications experience to launch a nonprofit, the East Dallas Arts District, to highlight and support East Dallas artists. The third annual Art Walk EAST will roll out this fall.

A lesson in possibility

Most of us will never return to a home leveled by fire. But loss, unexpected setbacks, failures and even trauma have a way of rearranging all of our lives.

Research from Emory University with people treated in emergency rooms for serious injuries found that the unique way a person’s brain responds to rewards and threats can help predict how resilient they are likely to be.

Perhaps Andrea is blessed with especially active brain regions related to resilience. Or perhaps resilience is something even more complicated. Something that reveals itself only after life forces us to find it.

Because research also suggests that resilience can be strengthened. People can find meaning in difficult circumstances and, sometimes, discover a path to growth through them.

The American Psychological Association suggests many of the same strategies Andrea found herself using: breaking overwhelming problems into manageable pieces, adapting one step at a time, focusing on what she could control, staying connected to people who could help, taking care of herself, and remaining open to what might come next.

No turning back

“I couldn’t go back to the sterile corporate world,” Andrea says. “I was ready for a new chapter. For so many years, I had been defined by who I was professionally and by what was expected of me. I needed to shed some of that identity and make room for my creative self—to let her breathe, trust her voice, and finally give her the freedom to decide what came next.”

Andrea never set out to change the course of her life. She turned to art as a way to process what she’d been through. But slowly, almost without realizing it, art became more than a place to heal. It became the beginning of what was next.

I don’t know what’s going on in your life right now. Or what you, or I, will experience tomorrow. But we do know that some of it will be very, very hard. It will require that we look both within and without to find sources of resilience.

But Andrea’s experience also makes me wonder about those moments when the life we know disappears, and what we might find if we’re willing to walk to the other side.