Long Live New Orleans

Two years ago I got a phone call from my father at about 6:30am, "sweetheart, the levees broke". I think I responded with, "ok, thanks for letting me know" and then five minutes later it hit me. Broken levee equals my Gran's house is completely underwater. Hurricane Katrina hit home and I lived in Dallas...

I went through a ton emotions until that October when Christopher and I traveled down to New Orleans to help get what we could out of her house. Seeing her house made everything a little more real and hurt allot more. The house that I spent hours sitting at the dinning room table listening to stories of the Great Depression, World War II and how my grandfather built the house they lived in by hand, was just a beaten and battered shell of what it used to be. Furniture was tossed around as if it was doll house props thrown into place by an angry child. Trees were bent like little toothpicks; while others were gracefully plucked from the ground and tossed across streets for all the world the see their elaborate root system that once gave them life. I had never seen the world so gray, the lack of color in everything was astonishing.

And while that chapter in our lives is coming to a close with family moved out of the city and property sold off, I can look back and say that everything happens for a reason. My grandmother is alive and well in her new home in Houston - only a four hour drive from us where she gets to see Ethan more than she would had she stayed in New Orleans. My cousin moved to Dallas for a better job and now lives a stones throw from Christopher and I , and we worked as a family to help each one of us get through something we never thought we would have to. Our family is built on strength, love and determination and one day I hope Ethan will know the strength family and friends can give you. Ethan got his name from Hurricane Katrina. The name Ethan means "strong leader" and his middle name is Webster, my grandmother's maiden name. She's a strong force in the world that at the age of 86 she had to start over with a new home, new city and new surroundings. Yet she did it. With the help of her children, grandchildren and her dog Tinker, she did it.

Christopher and I pray for those people who are still trying to rebuild their lives in the cities brought down by Katrina. And we pray that one day we can take Ethan to the city where I was born and show him a great and beautiful city I used to call my second home. Long Live New Orleans!