Once you've lived in NOLA or south Louisiana, it gets under your skin and you'll never be the same. You will be richer for the experience.
I couldn't agree more. And here's where I may surprise you a little:
I adore New Orleans. My first trip there was as a teenager, and due to our highly creative methods of ditching our more than adequate supervision, I had more fun that week than nearly any other time in my youth. My husband was born in Louisiana, lived the first ten years of his life a stones throw away from the city--right across the lake in Slidell. My honeymoon was spent in a beautiful little B&B in the French Quarter, and every morning of those first few weeks of our married life we woke up with a walk down to Cafe Du Monde for Cafe au lait and beignets. My husband's grandmother, grandfather and infant brother are buried there, in above ground cemeteries that have likely been washed away along with everything else. Our subsequent pleasure trips there over the years have been memorable in more ways than I can possibly relay here. The city I have known and loved has been nearly wiped off the map, and more human suffering than I can fathom has (and will continue to) accompany her destruction.
I have been trying very hard not to grieve selfishly for the destruction of the city, to not place what I have lost in any sphere that is even CLOSE to what those who have lost everything are experiencing. We are aching with sympathy and empathy for what everyone is experiencing there, we have sent as much money and supplies as we can, and have committed to do so on a regular basis. Our family is sacrificing months of separation (again, see my previous posts) to do our part to help rebuild.
I went back and looked over my posts regarding this situation, and I cannot find anything to regret in what I've said (except the harshness in which I spoke in one instance, and apologies and forgiveness were handled via PM). In no way have I declared that anyone suffering deserves to have had this tragic sequence of events befall them.
But what I did say, repeatedly, is that I will not jump on the bandwagon that places the blame for this situation squarely on the shoulders of one governmental agency or group of people. I will not stand idly by and wring my hands over the injustice of it all nor will I raise my fist in judgment without a lot of careful, thoughtful analysis. I have struggled to maintain an even keel in these discussions--to wade through the flying rhetoric and point out that there is blame enough to go around, and that assigning it to one or any factor in this mess does not equal lack of empathy or horror at the situation. I firmly believe that the deepest of empathy for the victims of any situation is not lessened by acknowledging the underlying factors that contributed to that situation.
I believe that as we move forward from this tragic sequence of events, America may well be at a crossroads. I believe that the hard issues, the issues of both governmental and personal responsibility, of the insidious cycle of poverty in this country, the real and deepening racial divide, our very social and political future as a nation, are going to need to be laid bare and examined with a level of honesty that has never yet been seen. And I, for one, am going to make myself ready--by refusing to gloss over what I see as real, causal factors in this situation in the hope that we learn that sympathy and accountability need not be mutually exclusive.
Sara--of the "2 cents turned into 2 dollars" class
