Picking up the pieces

By Robyn White
After Katrina Newswire

NEW ORLEANS — It's the morning of August 29, 2006 and I am awake early, walking to my car.  Fast, sudden breezes walk along side me and in a way that is unexplainable, I know it is exactly one year later.  I get into my car and drive to St. Bernard parish, seven miles outside of New Orleans , where I was born, raised, and lived until last year.  Along the way, there is something reminiscent about people's faces as they drive on the interstate; there's something different about the gas station attendant. The difference is a heightened awareness of where we all were at this very moment, on this very day one year ago.  The reminiscent look is what I would compare to how people looked on September 11, 2001 and the few days following.  Making eye contact with passer-bys for no more than one second is enough to be able to tell that the look in their eyes is a combination of painful memories, reverence, and a common, mutual respect in realizing that we, as Americans from the south, were in this catastrophe last year and we're here today, to remember.

I drive to Shell Beach , in Ycloskey , Louisiana , about 30 miles south east of New Orleans .  Today is an important day for so many reasons.  It is going home for the first time in a long time, it is the promise of seeing friends and neighbors that you haven't seen maybe since the era better known as "pre-Katrina." It is also the day that a large cross is erected and stands in the MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet) in Ycloskey and a memorial is revealed for the victims of hurricane Katrina.  The stone memorial honors names of all the people from St. Bernard parish that died in wake of Katrina. It's heart-wrenching to see family after family wait for a good spot around the stone, searching for a dead friend or relative's name.  Just a name because that's all there is left now.  Some cry, but most just stare ahead with a blank stare and walk up to graze their fingers over the etching and that's all there is left now.  My family and I find the name we are looking for, John Russell, and it isn't a feeling of relief; it's almost exactly the opposite.  While it is relieving to see recognition for the fact that yes, he did indeed live and was a part of this Earth, it is also hard to read that name and not know how he died.  Was he alone in Memorial Hospital when the generators broke?  Was he scared?  And what's even more shocking is now the unimaginably difficult question we keep wondering, did he die naturally or was euthanasia practiced prematurely?  He was supposed to come home in a few days. We stand at the monument solemnly, but eventually, the lesson of the year becomes clear- we must move on.

There are dozens of other families here just like us, but we are not alone. There are many journalists from all across the United States , from California to Colorado -all here to try to capture a piece of what is happening. Their eyes search around the crowd like hungry wolves for someone to interview, someone who will give a heartfelt portrayal of what this day means for the millions of Americans who are still don't have a clue about what it's like here. For whatever reason, a California journalist asks to interview me and I agree. Within seconds, I am immediately regretting my decision as he asks me to pose a certain way in front of the memorial, but I continue with the interview. He then asks me, on camera,' I see that you're not crying. Is this day an emotional one for you?' I look at him for one second with a look that I can only hope conveyed exactly how I was feeling-utter disbelief on so many levels. With someone like that it is a waste of time to try to explain how a person can be so overcome with emotions that they can't even cry. I wanted to say so much. I wanted to say yes, saying that this day is difficult for me feels like an insane understatement. This day marks the anniversary of so many things: of the harsh realization that nothing in life is certain, of the realization that yes, this disaster did occur in America, and yes Canadian forces arrived in my hometown to help before the National Guard did. Yes I still wish every morning that I had my old life back, from my bed and my dresser to my neighborhood and knowing that my closest friends were only minutes away. I wanted to tell him what it was like to hear people say 'Just pick up the pieces and move on, that's life' when only half the pieces can be recovered and the other half are mixed in with mold and mud after two weeks of submerged under 16 feet of water. I wanted to tell him what it's like to return to a place you called home for years and go every weekend to dig out your priceless possessions --year books, first teddy bears--covered in mold, knowing that this is the last time you will see ever see them while trying hopelessly to discount any sentimental attachment so that it's 'easy' to throw them away. I wanted to tell him what it felt like to have my younger sister ask me, fifteen days after the hurricane, "Are we homeless?" and to have to tell her yes while simultaneously fighting tears and attempting to reassure her that everything would be normal again. I have never felt like such a liar.

Instead of divulging any of that, I answered his questions with babbling responses that I'm sure were inadequate and not what he was looking for. He thanked me anyway and moved on to another victim, I mean 'survivor.' We won't go there.

When I was done, I sat along the rocks that overlooked the MRGO and thought. Still, one year later, it shocks me to know that my life and so many others in the south are at a stalemate. We have started the much underestimated and ultimately impossible process of rebuilding and moving on. We have done so more out of the human instinct of survival mode than anything else. We are Chalmations, New Orleanians, we are people from Diamondhead, Pass Christian-it doesn't matter where we are from, what matters is the fact that we were all affected, we are all experiencing this and dealing with it in different ways. There has been a great volume of argument over which cities have gotten more national coverage, which areas were hit the hardest, and also whether it's worse to return to a slab or a home still standing full of mold and memories. There is no winner in this contest.

Robin White is a junior English major and journalism minor at the University of Southern Mississippi. The After Katrina Newswire is a project of the School of Mass Communication and Journalism at USM (www.usm.edu/afterkatrina).  This story can be reprinted with this credit included.

http://www.usm.edu/afterkatrina/White/html