How do you tell a child with autism that their favorite toy is gone and their house has burned up?

The 7-year-old boy with autism experienced the Almeda Fire differently than anyone else, including his mother, father and older brother, though they all lost the family’s 20-year home and everything in it.

“Woody died,” Christopher Chavez said again and again, referring to his “Toy Story” action figure. “Woody burned!”

The depth of Christopher’s bewilderment and loss haunted his mother, Laura Avalos, heaping additional strain atop the stress of sudden houselessness. She is not alone. Several families in her autism support group lost their homes in the wind-fueled inferno that damaged or destroyed 2,357 homes in Phoenix, Oregon, and three other cities on Sept. 8.

“How do you explain to a child with special needs you don’t have a house any more?” said Laura Walton, a friend with a child who lived with disabilities. “How do you express to them their favorite toy burned? How do you explain to a daughter who lost a pillow she loved, that she relied on more than anything in the world for comfort, that it is gone forever?

Christopher relied on Woody to feel safe, and then the cowboy action figure was fuel for the fire, and now he is an indistinguishable pile of papery gray wisps in a sea of ashes sitting in the foundation of what was a family’s home.

Fortunately, good is rising from ashes in Phoenix.

Santiago Cruz, 17, who has an autistic younger brother of his own and knows Christopher’s family, recently went shopping with some of the money he earned this summer painting houses.

Christopher beamed when he saw what Santiago brought him.

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