I don't like to admit it, but it was 4 months before I could gather the courage to drive through the neighborhood of Lakeview, where I'd once lived years before. And now, two years later, I still have no adequate words to describe what I saw. The truth about describing Lakeview---or any of the devastated neighborhoods of New Orleans---is simply this: Words and pictures do it no justice. You had to be there.
It wasn't that a particular home was in ruins---water marks up to the roof, orange symbols on the door denoting how many bodies of people and animals were found inside, windows agape exposing the mildewed remains of someone's unsalvageable belongings---with no sign of life anywhere.
It wasn't that my old block, the homes of former neighbors I knew so well, were in ruins---water marks up to the roof, orange symbols on the door, windows agape---with no sign of life anywhere.
It was that house after house, block after block, dozens of blocks after dozens of blocks, hundreds of blocks after hundreds of blocks, were in ruins---water marks up to the roof, orange symbols scrawled on the doors, windows agape---with no sign of life anywhere.
All of Lakeview, the homes of over 9,000 people, stood silent and empty. The stores. The restaurants. The playgrounds. The movie theaters. The churches. The fire station. The schools. The banks. The gas stations. The doctors' offices. The pharmacies. The dry cleaners. The beauty salons.
Everything. Every home and every business...battered, mildewed and empty.
Except for a few utility workers, there were no people in the hundreds of blocks I drove through. No dogs. No cats. No squirrels. No birds. No sound. No color, except a dull gray-brown.
Just me and my memories of happier times. Other than that, I was alone.
Finally, I spotted a small area of green color on the playground on Fleur-de-Lis Avenue, where my son had played as a child. I stopped to see what it was. It turned out to be a cluster of green grass, the first living thing I'd seen that day. It was then that I finally allowed myself to cry.
Until then, it had all seemed so hopeless. But grass--alive and growing on a playground--that's something you could hang your hopes on. And hope was something everyone who loved the city needed.
And they need it still. |
