I lost everything in the Palisades fire. Watching the Eagles win in a borrowed home gave me a moment to exhale.

My parents bought their first home in 1968, in a Los Angeles neighborhood now infamous for its destruction: Pacific Palisades.

As Pali kids, my sister and I built forts in the bluffs overlooking the Pacific, watched movies at the Bay Theater, and pooled our allowance to buy new games at the toy store.

I never expected to live in the town that raised me, or for my children to go to the same schools, play at the same park, and get ice cream cones at the same Baskin Robbins as I did. I never imagined they would ride their bikes over invisible tracks left by my father and me, yet the Palisades became their home, too. A mile from my childhood home, a half-mile from my sister and nieces, they grew up as a part of something special.

I left my home for the last time at 8 a.m. on Jan. 7, eager to meet a new client, a teenage girl from Guatemala who had fled her homeland last fall, part of my work as a staff attorney at an immigration nonprofit.

After we had scheduled a follow-up appointment and said goodbye, I saw the texts: my niece in New York and my son in Santa Cruz, Calif., checking on the fam group chat. Are you all OK? Have Grandma and Papa left? I checked with my husband, Christopher, a Philly boy I’d met at the University of Pennsylvania. They were safe.

The last time we’d all evacuated a few years ago, we had been back home by dark. But by evening, it was clear we weren’t going home that night. This was much, much worse.

While my parents and sister stayed at my niece’s apartment, we called a family friend whose house was far enough from the flames and whose son was away in college. All night long, I listened to the gusting wind, knowing the worst was happening, but dreaming that at least my parents’ house might be spared.

I woke to a smoky gray sky and a text from my mother. Their home was gone. Soon after, ours was, too. The next day, my sister’s house burned.

What do you do when you lose everything but the clothes you wore to work that day — and each other? Who do you turn to when everyone you usually go to for advice is living the same nightmare?

In the past two weeks, I have learned to ask for help and to accept it. College friends sent messages of love and gift cards that let me replace my laptop that had burned to a crisp. I have learned that not knowing where to shelter your family is the foundational question on which peace of mind depends.

I wanted us all to be together and had decided to go to my aunt and uncle’s home in Ventura, Calif. — until the flames started flaring in that direction and they had to evacuate, too. I have learned that it helps to be told what to do, like when a friend who lives by the sea an hour south said: “You are taking my house for as long as you need to figure out your next move. And don’t worry about making a mess, the house comes pre-broken.”

For 10 days, her dining room table became my family’s dining table and workplace. My nieces and sons uploaded digital photos of our homes to shared albums, while my husband fielded calls with the insurance company. I listened to my mother tell a Federal Emergency Management Agency agent the details of a particular memento, and the way a stained-glass window reflected on an interior door.

Finally, on Sunday, my husband’s birthday, we secured a rental for a year, paid by insurance. I could exhale. I thought he could, too.

“You’ve worked so hard for the last 12 days,” I said, “Today you get to relax and enjoy the game!” His Eagles vs. my dad’s Rams.

He replied in the voice of a true fan: “Watching the Eagles play will put more stress on my heart than anything else this week. Win or lose, it is a cardiac event.”

We wore Eagles shirts our sons sourced at a local store, celebrating one of the strangest birthdays any of us has had.

That night, after the Eagles win, I still woke up with cortisol surging, recreating the day I left my house for the last time, but in my imagination, I chose to wear the necklace my grandparents had given me in 1991 for my Penn graduation, the one I’d worn almost every day since.

The next morning, we packed up and left our temporary refuge in cars filled with donated clothes, shoes, and toiletries, putting a new address in our GPS. I heard my sons mark it as “home” in their phones, with a note of regret. It is beautiful, and we are safe, and I am grateful — but it isn’t home.

Laura Nicole Diamond is the author of the novel ”Shelter Us” and a staff attorney at the Immigration Center for Women and Children.