Saturday, August 28, 2010

5 years ago...

I will start this post by saying that I love New Orleans. I grew up in south Louisiana and lived there until I was 16 years old. My dad and stepmom live in a suburb of New Orleans and I love going to visit. I love the culture and the accents and the food there.

Five years ago, Hurricane Katrina hit. Here is my blog from the time. I can't get it to link tonight. http://coleminer.xanga.com/330837206/item/ This has been a popular news topic in the last week. I'm so glad that it's still on people's minds. I'm glad that it's not something that has been forgotten.

However, I can't watch the news coverage of it.

A week before Hurricane Katrina hit, my house was struck by lightning and burned down. It was such a shocking experience and while we were still living in at my mom's house before the insurance adjuster put us in a hotel, Katrina hit.

Even right after it happened, I couldn't watch the news coverage of it. It was so awful to watch people dealing with the loss of everything that they owned. We were dealing with it, but we had insurance to replace it all. I felt guilty. I was going to get all of my "stuff" back.

It was just such a mix of emotions. I was dealing with my own journey of grief/loss/thankfulness and I couldn't deal with the emotions of what others were dealing with at the same time.

Our home was completely rebuilt and it ended up being a blessing for our family. I'm so sorry for the people who lost everything and are still fighting to get it replaced.

Have any of you ever dealt with a disaster hitting you at the same time that something tragic happened in the world? How did you deal with it?

1 comment:

Elizabeth Crawford said...

I feel the same way about September 11. For me that is a sacred day and I know it's only because I lived in Manhattan when it happened. In church this morning I saw that there was a children's activity scheduled for this 9/11 and I said to my husband, "How do people schedule things on this day?" I become so emotionally charged just thinking about that day...I also cannot watch any footage of the events of 9/11. It's interesting to note that everyone holds certain events close to their heart, events that have changed our personal lives so profoundly, we wonder how others function on the anniversary of those events.