The anniversary of a hurricane, noted by another hurricane, school is coming

Y’all, it has been a week. We are at that point in summer where I just want everyone out of my house. And yet, Tom is still working from home, and Oliver doesn’t return to school until 9/8. Jack starts 10th grade tomorrow, enormous news as he spent fewer than 20 days of freshman year actually in school. His first class of high school was online net sports. Bless. I made his favorite meal tonight- gumbo and blackberry pie- and he ate gallons and tons. So, as he heads into tomorrow with a fantastic new haircut and a great slate of classes, he is ready, despite a few nerves.

Last Wednesday, my dad had a fairly standard surgery. After less than 24 hours, however, he was discharged in completely ambivalent fashion, and not three hours later, I took him to the ER. We were there until nearly midnight, and as we drove home realized that the next day, Friday, was the first anniversary of Hurricane Laura. What a shitty anniversary. And to cap that off, Hurricane Ida started approaching. As I’m sure you’ve seen, she landed with a thunderous Cat 4 bash on SE Louisiana around lunchtime today, the 16th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. At present, all of New Orleans is without power, the Mississippi River actually REVERSED course for several hours because of Ida’s extremely high winds, 22 barges broke free in one parish, and 22 miles of I-10 are already closed because of downed trees, and after seven hours, the storm is still a Cat 3. And this on top of the horrific Covid situation across Louisiana. None of this is good at all. I am SO THANKFUL that my parents live here now and aren’t boarding up, evacuating, and so forth. Mom worked in her garden today, Dad rested, I brought him gumbo, and now I’m giving more thanks for the silver lining that is Laura booting them from Lake Charles.

For a bit of levity, I give you this.

Mask up, y’all, stay safe, and may our children stay in school!

11 September 2020: Back home

This is the first time I’ve had an ounce of enough mental and emotional bandwidth to sit here since I last wrote. It seems, in some way, oddly appropriate that it’s 9/11 which was, of course, a day of such destruction and loss. So much of Lake Charles looked or was so destroyed after Hurricane Laura; it was much worse than I expected, both at my parents’ home and throughout the city.

The tree loss was stunning. Live oaks that have survived countless storms were uprooted and split. Huge pines were keeled over everywhere with their root balls and still-attached circles of earth standing forlornly at attention. Mom and Dad lost all but 3 trees, including the stunning, 30+-year-old Live oak that my grandparents gave them before the house was even built. While Tom and I were in Lake Charles, there was no electricity, minimal cell service, and water was (and remains) boil-only. With the heat index, it was well over 100 every day; four people, that I knew of, died of heat exhaustion during my week in LC. None of us working to pack up and clear out the house ever peed during the day, despite guzzling gallons of water and Gatorade on a nearly-constant basis.

Some power and cellular service has been restored, but you still can’t drink the water and schools remain closed. Can you imagine trying to communicate and deal with insurance claims with only sporadic mobile access and on tiny phone screens while kids are hot, bored, and losing out on the educations they need and deserve and you or your loved ones may have lost everything?

I saw people living in tents along the roads. Mom and dad’s neighbors to the right had significant damage to their beautiful home, and after working for a full week to save, repair, and guard against further damage, their generator caught fire one morning and burned the house to the point that I don’t know if it’s salvageable. Loss upon loss upon loss. I am beyond thankful that the firemen thought to look in the garage and got the MANY full gas cans out in time. 

Helpers like those firefighters were incredible. World Central Kitchen set up meal service in the Walmart parking lot, churches shared meals and supplies from their lots, Oregon Products set up a free chainsaw-sharpening station, and Tide offered free laundry stations. The insurance adjuster looked shell-shocked as he wandered through the house; he graded it catastrophic and said he would do his best. And I can’t even begin to adequately thank all of our family and friends who came to help Mom and Dad.

We got most of the house packed up and shipped off to storage units in Houston and Baton Rouge by the time I left last Saturday. And soon enough it will all be heading this way.

I am not sure I’ve ever felt so depleted, and it’s unfamiliar and disconcerting, not at least in light of the fact of COVID-19 in America, everyone at home, and the most important election of our lifetimes in just 53 days. But, I am thankful Mom and Dad are safe, that Tom and I could go help, that we’ll soon all be nearer each other, and that both Jack and Ol have had great starts to their school years. Jack is so happy at his new school which is just beyond wonderful to see. It’s so clear that both schools and all the teachers over the summer put Herculean efforts into preparing for this odd year. Cheers and thanks to all of them!

28 August 2020: Daily

You are all so very kind, and I appreciate all the check-ins and love more than you know. With the heaviest of hearts, I must let you know that Mom and Dad’s house cannot be saved. Tom and I are flying down tomorrow to help salvage what can be and to say goodbye to the rest.

Many of you have asked if I grew up in the house. No, I didn’t. But the history is one of love.

Mom and Dad met as Tulane undergraduates. He was a year older and shy as could be, but he liked her legs and could, and still can, dance like a pro. She was unsure about the shyness but loved the joyful dancing, and the rest is history. He started med school in Augusta, GA, and after she graduated, they got married, and she joined him there. They did NOT love Augusta, but there they lived in the former servants’ quarters of an old manor house of sorts; the son of the owners was an architect with whom they became friends. They talked dreams, I was born, they moved to Mobile for Dad’s residency, they stayed in touch, my sister was born, they moved to Lake Charles, my dad got a job, and they saved enough to afford blueprints. Plans for the home they’d long dreamed of, designed by the architect they now called a friend.

That roll of plans stayed in a tube for years. While they saved and bought a piece of land, saved some more and built a wharf and boathouse, saved some more until finally I was 16 and a high school junior and they broke ground on the house. That was 26 years ago.

Mom was the general contractor for all intents and purposes, and while I begrudged her then, as a high school senior angsty about everything, she brought their dreams to fruition in a magical way that I now, as I try to maintain an identity beyond Mom, draw on to set limits when I need and want to work. She kept the schedule running such that we moved in the month of my senior prom and Mom and Dad hosted a dinner for a dozen of us on the back porch.

In the years after, I had my wedding reception in the backyard, brought my babies there, served as maid of honor when my sister had her wedding reception there, and have sent my boys there for memorable Big Boys Weeks almost every summer since Jack was 4. My Nanny is buried not far away, the bayou that runs behind the house is always a balm, Mr. Egret always fishes for his dinner before gliding away gracefully as we rock and rock.

It is all gone now, or will be soon. A life’s dream and work rendered largely moot in a few hours. I am devastated for my parents and for my sons. I suppose at some point it will hit me that Home is gone, that perhaps when I fly away this coming Friday, it will be for the last time.

I can’t deal with that now, so I organized because that, I can do. Look for the helpers, they always say. I am humbled to say that my family has been inundated with the most loving of helpers, and a small army will tomorrow descend on Lake Charles. Loaded with bubble wrap and bottled water, gasoline and chainsaws, packing tape and duct tape, sandwiches and sweat equity, they are coming from all over Texas and Louisiana and even Tennessee, and together, because of love, we will save what we can and try to start ushering my parents, who have given so much to so many, into their next phase. Lake Charles is without running water, electricity, gas stations, and many cell towers, and yet we will make things work with great care.

Essentially, such communion is all we have. If we paid attention to that, we’d tend the earth, disregard lies and craven political strategy, one-upmanship, bigotry. But we are human, and we are so challenged, and I guess that’s what makes the coming-together that I witnessed today and will witness this next week so very special. I will never forget all the kindness and generosity and love bestowed on my family, and I know that in part, all that is because my parents, and my grandparents, have always been helpers. It’s coming back to them when they need it most, and I am grateful.

Be well.