It has been a rollercoaster year for Joshua Jackson and his family.
On the one hand, the Dawson's Creek alum has experienced a well-deserved resurgence thanks to Doctor Odyssey, which premiered in September and just came back for the second part of its first season.
On the other hand, outside of the screen, the The Mighty Ducks actor's year has been marred with heartbreak after losing his home to the wildfires that recently ravaged much of Los Angeles.
Joshua has since opened up about the loss — both for him and his daughter Juno, who is almost five, and who he shares with ex-wife Jodie Turner-Smith — revealing the added, heartbreaking layer that not only was it his current home, but the home he grew up in.
Speaking with Brooke Shields on The Kelly Clarkson Show — the supermodel stepped in for Kelly — Joshua said the last few months have "been a bit of a scramble, but we're doing alright."
"This story only gets worse the more that I tell it," he went on, before explaining: "When my parents were still together we moved from Vancouver which is where I was born to this home in Southern California. I lived there. So all of my early childhood memories are in that house. And in my parents divorce, they sold it, and 18 years later, I bought it from the man who bought it from my father in the divorce."
© Tina ThorpeThe story goes that he was in town for a wedding, and one day walking around the hills where the house was with a childhood friend, the friend greeted the inhabitant of the home at the time.
Joshua then noticed a sticker he had placed when he was a kid, and the fact that the whimsical dragon mural that had adorned his childhood bedroom had never been painted over. "'I knew it meant a lot to someone and that they would come back for it someday,'" he recalled the man telling him, adding: "And then he sold me the house."
© Instagram"Then all of life happened, love, heartbreak, life, everything," he continued, lastly noting: "But the last gift that the house gave me was bringing my daughter home and laying her to sleep in my childhood bedroom under the dragon."
© Getty ImagesJoshua also reflected on the loss and his plans to rebuild during an appearance on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. "It's devastating but it's an interesting thing to wake up one morning and all you own is a grungy sweatsuit and a pair of shoes," he said, joking: "I should have worn nicer clothes to work that day. That was my big mistake."
© InstagramHe went on: "But you know when I went to go see it, I'm standing in front of this thing, and it's still literally smoking, and I'm looking at it, and I'm like, 'This bears no relation to my home.' This is just a pile of stuff that burned in a fire."
"And in some ways I'm actually excited for the opportunity — that house has given me so much over the years, right? And I have loved it, and it has loved me, and it has everything, the heartbreak, the baby, just life. All of life is in there. Every floorboard is a piece of my story," he further shared, though emphasized: "And I'm excited to build a new house that doesn't have all of daddy's history in it, that is for her and I, so that when she grows up, every floorboard has her story in it."
