As the fires died down and Borderline’s story faded in the national media, I travelled home for Thanksgiving break. I saw old friends, I visited the impromptu memorial, I cried a lot. I felt horrible, like many others who were grieving, but it also felt cathartic to be home.

I felt guilty about going back to school in Northern California. I wanted to be home, but I had classes to go to and finals to take. But my mind always returned to the family and friends I had left. I tried to stay in contact and up to date on local news, but it never seemed like I could do enough to help others in pain.

Even when I returned for Christmas break, it never seemed like I could do enough.

Before meeting up for our shoot, Anna Randall recalled feeling overwhelmed and uncertain as the fires were making their way into Thousand Oaks.

“I remember getting a call from my mom saying they had to evacuate, and she asked me if I wanted anything. I literally couldn’t think of anything I wanted except this granite bear sculpture I have that reminds me of my fondest childhood memories.”

-Anna Randall, USC student, Thousand Oaks resident

“It was the beginning of some classes at my [college] soon after and I remember introducing myself and saying I was from Thousand Oaks. Before it was a town that no one knew of, but after the shooting and fires, most people knew. It was so interesting to see how people responded to this and slowly, over time, I think it’s been fading back to a town that no one knows about. For better or worse.”

-Daniel Razum, Cal Poly SLO student, Thousand Oaks resident

In January of 2019, the Orfanos family held a wake for their son Telemachus, who passed away at Borderline. In this case, the wake was a gathering to celebrate his life, rather than a traditional memorial in response to his death.

“The three of us [Marc, his wife, and his younger son], we each said something about Tel, and I said, ‘If you only knew Tel in the Borderline context, you didn’t know Tel. If you only knew Tel in the Boy Scout context, you didn’t know Tel. If you only knew Tel in the church context, you didn’t know Tel.’ The point is that Tel was multi-layered… He is more than just the way he died, or where he died.”

-Marc Orfanos, father of Telemachus Orfanos

In our conversation, Orfanos emphasized some of the things about his son that not many people knew – he loved to travel, he read often, and he could bake an amazing chocolate chip cookie.