1 Yr Ago Pt. 2

My home town was wounded…like someone had taken a baseball bat and knocked it around for awhile.   There were help wanted signs everywhere you looked.   So many people were still gone.   How can you come back to a place when you don’t have a place to live, where schools aren’t open yet.  When still huge sections of the city the power still isn’t on.   I knew it was going to be bad.   I had spent hours watching TV, and the internet just trying to find out news.   I had by this time located most of my family….and some friends.   My mom was lucky…her trailer sat in a cul-de-sac and her trailer was in the middle.  The ones on the outside…well they weren’t so lucky.   

You couldn’t get to the grave yard where my dad was buried…that hurt most of all.  There was too much damage….it would take months and months to find out news about him.   The volunteers braved snakes….mosquitoes…and who knows what else to clear a way in…. I want to thank the kind lady who volunteered to go look when folks could actually get thru all the downed tree to make sure my daddy was still resting easy.   I’ve never meet her…but I owe her a lot.  She eased my nightmares.   Friends who had loved ones in Cameron and Holly Beach weren’t so lucky.   Some will never know where the graves are…the lucky one who could give authorities some sort of DNA can rebury them.  

My DH asked me what I wanted to see…and I couldn’t answer him.   I didn’t want to see the place where I grew up like this.   I didn’t want to see my friend’s eyes looking so haunted.   But you couldn’t avoid it….people everywhere you looked had this look in their eyes.  

The trip to the grocery store was done in silence.  We had to take several Detours to actually get to it.   We passed my Jr. High School…and I made my DH stop.    I did take a picture there…..I wanted to take a picture of the school tree…a 100 + year old Pine tree that use to stand so proud while we had pep rallies and school programs around it.   It was stacked neatly on the side of the road…what was left of the trunk looked like it had been snapped by the finger of God.  

I had been on forums about my home town on the internet.  It helped.  So I had a list of places I wanted to see if I could find.  People had found out I was bringing mom home and asked if I could check on their place.   Strangers had done the same for me and I wanted to repay the favor.    A lady named Sally had her poor hubby slog thru all the mess and check points to check on my mother’s trailer.  I gave her the address and she lived a few miles away.  I don’t know this lady either…but she did a stranger a favor.  One that I won’t forget.    My cousin’s trailer had a lovely pine tree thru the middle of it.  He wouldn’t be coming home for awhile.    The house I checked on for a lady on the internet…who lived two streets down from my cousin, her name was  BettyK. her house had the front window gone and a pine tree resting against it.   When I stopped and got out of the car to take a picture for her and to check the house, I was stopped by her neighbor who didn’t take kindly to me messing around the place.  When I explained why I was there….he said he had put up the plastic on the window and the tarp on the roof.   He almost cried when I told him she was ok and in Okla.   He hadn’t done much else…because he wasn’t sure if she had insurance or not.   My Uncle’s little house was gone…two trees did their damage…he would be staying with his daughter for awhile. 

We wanted to go further down Hwy 90….but were stopped by Police and turned back.  They didn’t want “lookyloos”…  there was too much devastation.   So I had to tell My Aunt and her friend I couldn’t get thru.   As it turned out it wouldn’t have mattered anyway…there was nothing to see.  Ms. Rita was not a kind lady…..

We headed for home not to long after that….there are a lot more things I could say or write…but it’s hard.   When I thought about writing about this I didn’t realize how many memories and feelings it would bring out.   People keep asking me why my eyes are so red today.   If I thought writing about Rita was hard….Katrina is even harder…one that even today I have such a hard time with.   I won’t be writing about it right now…maybe later.   This time last year was hard…I spent a lot of time on the phone tracking down friends…and family….I spent a lot of time in forums scouring for any information I could find.    I spent a lot of time crying.   A year has passed….time has marched on…people are rebuilding lives and homes.   A lot has happened in a year…..