27 August is one of those days that I used to look back upon with fondness. It was the day I started LSU in 1979, crossing both a physical and metaphorical bridge out of New Orleans that I so much wanted to cross. And each year when this day passed I would look back and quietly smile; I’m glad I crossed that bridge.
But now 27 August is different. Two years ago on that day my parents, and my in-laws, left their homes in the Lakeview neighborhood of New Orleans for “a few days” to wait out a hurricane named Katrina. So did lots of other people. They all crossed bridges that day both physical and metaphorical, though none of us had any idea how big those bridges were going to become. While Katrina may have hit on 28 August, this was the day that everything began to change for us.
And how it changed. My in-laws have left New Orleans, never to return. The house they built some 55 years ago was beyond repair and had to come down. They moved elsewhere in Louisiana. They crossed a bridge. My parents, on the other hand, want to go back. As much as I wish at their ages they would pack it in and move out of the City, they are determined to rebuild. They, too, have crossed a bridge. For my father, a judge and retired Marine, it almost as a matter of principle – he says he will NOT be defeated by all of this. While they have made very different decisions, I understand both, and find no fault with either. They both have had to cross bridges that no one should ever have to cross. And they are not alone. Hundreds of thousands in New Orleans and the surrounding parishes have had to struggle across the same bridge. For most, that struggle continues even now, two years later.
So when you hear all of the hooplah on the news about the Katrina anniversary commemorations and speeches this week, remember that the world actually changed for so many days before. With bridges. Crowded bridges. And please remember in your prayers: Carole and John in Lakeview, Earl and Pat from Lakeview, Toby and his family in New Orleans East, all of the good people at the Church of the Annunciation in the Broadmoor neighborhood, Karl and his family near Bayou St. John, Johanna and her family in Lakeview, Frederica and her family from Mid-City, and Tammy and her family in Kenner.
(more tomorrow)
