Ricki Lake thought everything was lost in Palisades fire. Until a stranger found her holiday miracle
By Tracy Brown Los Angeles Times LOS ANGELES Miracles do still happen Ricki Lake took to Instagram on Monday to share the craziest story of how a stranger had uncovered her old family photos at a freaking flea area Related Articles Kate Baer wrote her poems with you in mind Dear Abby Too late to leave narcissist husband Takeover bid of parent company means limbo for CNN and particular fellow cable networks Golden Globes enter the world of podcasts and tread precisely avoiding disagreement In The Chronology of Water Imogen Poots detected a great role and a best friend in Kristen Stewart I can t even process this the former talk show host says in the video My words are not coming Lake who lost her Malibu home in the Palisades fire in January recounted how a couple of her friends had reached out to her Sunday night to let her know that someone had posted images of old photos featuring Lake and her son on social media and was trying to get in touch with her I couldn t believe what I was seeing because all of it was gone in the fire Lake says Patty Scanlon the artist who had posted the images joined Lake on Instagram Live to share how she stumbled upon the photos while looking for inspiration at the Pasadena City College Flea Domain It was like the universe drove me to get your pictures Scanlon says explaining she revealed a box of photos at the first vendor she hit at the domain and bought it for I opened the pictures and the first one I saw I thought Oh I love that woman s face The artist didn t forthwith recognize the woman in the photos but as she looked through more of them she realized it was Lake and her son Milo who is now as a toddler In addition to the photos Scanlon discovered a letter that indicated Lake had mailed them as a thank-you for various gifts that were given to baby Milo These pictures are so priceless to me Lake says They would be anyway but the fact that I lost all of these images in the fire in January I thought they were gone forever I had made peace she continues It was such a heartache and such a painful thing to come to terms with That all of these memories are no longer in front of me They re just in my mind and heart now But the fact that you unveiled these is unbelievable In the video Scanlon hypothesizes that the box of photos apparently ended up at the flea arena after an estate sale and says she can t believe what a miracle it was that she had discovered them after learning about how Lake had lost everything in the fires I really cannot thank you enough for your generosity Lake says to Scanlon The fact that I m going to get something back that I thought was lost forever it makes me so happy Los Angeles Times Visit latimes com Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC
