i have been wrestling with one thing quite a bit lately: the five simple words of "it could have been me."
i do a lot of work with homeowners and have seen more than enough here on the coast in almost five months to have a small taste of the devastation that has forever altered life here. i have seen the wrestlessness of those living in tiny travel trailers as a family. i have seen the frustrations of homeowners trying once again to work one more angle with their insurance company. i have seen people apply to any and every organization that they can find in hopes that someone will take notice and help. i have seen people living in front of their homes with all the funding necessary to restore what was, but no knowledge, skill or help to get the work done. i have seen and heard much, and lately i have been haunted by the reality that it could have been me...
i used to try to insulate myself from that by saying that i would have up and left for good, or that i would have done the work myself, that i would have been able to fight the insurance companies on my own, or that i would have somehow found the funding and help necessary to be back in my home living in some semblance of normal life. that somehow i would have been the exception to the norm, that somehow i am more special... nothing but big fucking lies...
for reasons beyond my control i was not born here nor did i ever have any life here. for some reason katrina devastated this region and i had absolutely nothing to do with the immediate or the long term chaos, suffering and reality. i will never be able to ever really identify with everybody who has gone through and continues to live in the wake of such a catastrophic event. i am forever an outsider here, fully responsible for having chosen to come, fully capable of leaving when i would like, free from the scars and fears and challenges... and this is the reality that i must live in and wrestle with each and every day here on the mississippi gulf coast...
i still think there is something to be gained from entering in, even though this was not your home. that trying to understand, helps those we serve to heal.
ReplyDeletei definitely agree. it think i was just wrestling with the fact that nobody deserved to go through katrina (and its aftermath) and that sometimes as an outisder it is so easy to think of ourselves of having reacted differently and become the exception to the norm and that somehow we would have overcome the odds... there are days when i find this elitism in myself and i absolutely hate it.
ReplyDeletekerry,
ReplyDeleteyeah i guess that's true...i can't help thinking that "if it were me", well, i don't think i can fathom the kind of loss i would feel everyday.
today i talked to a retired second grade teacher, who had evacuated early and had practically no damage to her house, she told me she was so blessed to give parents of children ,who she had taught and who had lost everything, the only photographs they will have of their kids pre-katrina. i was crying in public yet again!