It's easy to forget about the victims of Katrina. My parents are still living in a 30 foot trailer but anticipate moving into the house above by early July. Hurricanes were fun growing up. It is hard to explain it but when you don't have to pay the house note or the car payment, hurricanes are the next best thing to anticipating a trip to Disney World. We get out of school, we get national TV exposure (which rarely happens in Pascagoula unless Trent Lott slips up and says something wrong), and we get to flee the city for a nice hotel room somewhere north of Hattiesburg. Elena and Frederick were weanies. They just blew down about 18 of our trees. I remember the mosquitos, the heat, the clean up, the dead squirrels, the grilling out, the oak tree top in our attic, and skateboarding at night through in valleys of piled up debris in the streets.
But I still say I wouldn't trade the memories for anything. There is something hautingly fun about taping up our windows 2 hours before the world caves in.
But I am reminded now of what Katrina did. As I sit here with my youngest child in my lap, it is strange to find myself so content in Memphis, TN. Sometimes I feel as if I should be going through hell myself down there. Many people who moved after Katrina feel guilty for doing so and are moving back. I would have left also, I admit. Now my memories are filled with the darkened streets of that first entry into Pascagoula a week after the storm. I recall my mom crying on my shoulder, sitting by myself on the destroyed property as my mom stood in a 6 hour FEMA line, pulling out other people's lives from my house (this included hot water heaters, guns, dishwashers, plates, pictures, clothes, decks, sinks, mattresses, furniture, and jewelry), standing on an entire house in my front lawn but oddly enouph only being about 5 feet off the ground, the rescue helicopters that made it sound like a war zone, rumors of dead friends, rumors of hundreds dead in a nearby neighborhood, the awful signs that we wrote to scare off looters, and a father who just happened to be an insurance agent at the worst possible moment.
But now I can gaze at the house above and realize that, although this country has enormous problems, it is a pretty good deal. My parents will live well now for the rest of their lives. I also look at my parents as heros. My brother and I used to talk about how they couldn't survive anything like hurricane Ivan that came a year before and caused a big scare. They fooled us all. They stuck it out. They survived and will in some weird way cherish it all. The Apostle Paul said that we can take joy in our sufferings. I believe what he said. But honestly I think that joy only comes as the years pass by.
I know I write too much about hurricane Katrina. Maybe this will be the last. But I am amazed that now my family can now look back on it as a distant memory. This Christmas we gathered together and made the new house into a home. Surprisingly we all agreed that it felt quite normal, even more appreciated. Thanks be to God.
