It’s been a weird day. I think I have written about this before. I didn’t really know why I felt out of sorts, a bit lost and unfocused all day today. Then it hit me. My beloved, Jennifer, posted a link on Facebook to an amazing post she made a few years ago, outlining our experience with “that storm” during and after the landfall of “she who shall not be named”. Jennifer captures everything so well, although she does downplay the enormous work she did in establishing and running our onsite medical clinic at Camp Coast Care and her subsequent work as the leader of the Children’s Health Fund medical and mental health teams post-Katrina, both of which impacted the lives of thousands of people, including lots of kids, after the storm.

Today I noticed she had posted on Facebook a link (https://www.facebook.com/TennisRN) to those thoughts she had written several years ago. So yes, I chased that rabbit down the hole, reliving, remembering, hearing it and smelling it and seeing it. I found myself weeping uncontrollably, once again. Does it get better?

Some of the tears are of course for those who lost so much, about a church that was never the same, about people who lost loved ones and people who, like us, are forever scarred. Other tears are for what could have been, what changed so much in our lives, for good and for ill, for our children and how it impacts them to this day, and for the legion of people who loved us and came to our aid, sacrificing so much for those in great need.

I also wept thinking of the example of Christ like love and compassion we were enveloped in. I am forever grateful. 19 years. On days like today, it is so fresh and so horrid and yet all that is wrapped in two words – love and gratitude. We were so blessed by so many of you. Thank you.