Today I drove to New Orleans for a delivery. It was quite the trip to make in a day, but the hours and miles flew by as I made the drive. I thought of it as just any other delivery and pick up that I make everyday, but just a little bit farther. As I pulled into the French Quarter after several hours, I realized this trip would be a little more significant than the usual deliveries. Even after six years, the effects of Katrina can still be seen on several buildings. Serious water damage and uncontrollable overgrowth from plants and weeds are still on several blocks of the Quarter. I didn’t know what to expect, but I didn’t expect to see damage in a city six years later.
When I finally pulled up to the art gallery, I was actually able to make contact with the first person all day. Carly is the store manager and has helped this gallery transition into a very respectable place. When I pulled up she helped me load the car up and then asked me how far I had driven to pick them up. I told her I left from Tuscaloosa earlier that morning and she immediately asked me about the tornado. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t equate any natural disaster in the US to Katrina, but the path of destruction in Tuscaloosa is unbelievable. Just like that, we had a bond though we never actually met. The conversation was brief but an interesting one.
Carly told me that people tried every phrase and cliche in the book when the storm hit New Orleans to help the people cope, but nothing seemed to do any justice. There was literally nothing that was spared from the waters of Katrina, so every resident was literally in the same boat. Six years later, pretty much everyone has rebuilt and moved on, but that is a moment in their history that they can never completely move away from. I told her that my house and neighborhood was untouched although we were only a couple of miles away. For most of us, our story was completely different from Katrina because we didn’t lose anything. However, there’s a huge population in our city that knows exactly what the Katrina victims felt. They know because they lost everything, and they live right down the street.
I asked Carly how you get to a point to move forward after something like that, and if words could ever help. She told me that many people encouraged her and said some great (and horrible) things, but just the fact that people continued to encourage carried more weight that the actual words. I’ve been trying to figure out how to interact and what to say to people that have lost everything, like some magical concoction of words would shake them out of this nightmare. The thing that I realized today was that the words I use in and of themselves aren’t that powerful. No one thing I say can erase these memories. I don’t think anything can. But the steadfast friendships and constant encouragements are the things that people treasure.
So how can you help someone move forward from this? Don’t box it into one conversation. Sure, things can happen immediately and heart change can come in a moment, but that’s the exception. We need to treat every victim (and everyone really) as a future friendship instead of a one time conversation. That’s when people can see your heart and the good intentions you hope will shine through. We can’t change people, we can only love them.
