Only The Brave

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Only the Brave is a movie coming out on the 20th about the 19th Hotshots that lost their lives during the Yarnell Hill Fire. It was the biggest loss of fire crew in the US since 9/11 And it had to be from my family's hometown. Yarnell is a small little town, my great grandparents lived there, my grandma lived there, my mom grew up there. This town is history for us. I have visited Yarnell many times, seen the beautiful shrine, all these places that my mom used to go to when she was a teenager. When we heard that the fire was in Prescott, heading towards Glen Isla and then Yarnell, my mom was glued to the computer screen hoping that Yarnell would not be destroyed. Even my dad called me to see how my mom was doing because he knew this fire was devastating. thankfully, a lot of Yarnell was spared. The shrine got a little toasted, but not that much and even my mom's old home was spared. Now you know the connection to why this movie meant so much to my family, let's talk about the movie. It was absolutely beautiful. It was based off Brendan McDonough's book, My Lost Brothers where he writes about his experience with the hotshots and when his entire crew died and he was the lone survivor. In the movie it mentions all these fire, fires I remember reading about on the news. One right after the other and I remember feeling so uneasy because I knew when Yarnell Hill fire was coming up. The movie was brilliant though, it was funny, it was beautiful, the sense of commeraridary with the crew felt real. It felt like these guys were just having a good time, that it wasn't even acting. that is how real it felt. And then it mentions at the bottom, "Yarnell Hill Fire" and I could feel the house go silent. Everyone who knew about this fire knew what going to happen. And seeing it happen, I was sobbing, because I just kept thinking about actually listenings to the relay of what really happened, hearing the last words and the bitter silence. I was holding in my blubbers because I wanted to cry out loud so badly. But I didn't. My grandma was crying, everyone in the theatre I heard sniffles behind us. My mom didn't cry though, I think she already had her moment of grievance, she read the book, she cried through it realistically. So that is probably why she didn't cry, which is fine. All in all, this movie was amazing. It felt so nice and so real. When it comes out on the 20th, I really hope some of you will go see it.