When it became apparent that I needed to leave D.C. that Sunday, because the Katrina was making land fall on the morning of August 29, I had an early afternoon flight already booked and a late evening flight also booked. I had reasons for booking two flights. If I had needed and wanted the extra time, I would have had it that Sunday, and if not, I could leave earlier mid afternoon.\r\n\r\nOne was a direct flight to New Orleans, the later flight and one had a layover in Memphis. Since no flights were going into New Orleans any longer, all flights were leaving only, my choice had to be to go to Memphis.\r\n\r\nFortunately, my cousin, Carolyn and her family, along with some friends, were driving from Mandeville to Memphis to ride out the storm with her husband\'s family. But, no, they would not be going into the city to get my mother on their way out of town. However, I could meet them in Memphis and stay with them. This is what I did.\r\n\r\nCarolyn had been battling cancer for a year and a half. She also had a troubled bipolar daughter. She was, in spite of that, the glue that held us together. I thought by rendezvousing with them in Memphis, I could either return to New Orleans with them with they went back or get to New Orleans on the last leg of my flight at some point in a day or two. None of us ever imagined that life would forever change that night.\r\n\r\nThe night of the storm we stayed up, watching the latest news. Sitting across from her, I noticed that while my feet didn\'t touch the floor, hers did. We were the same height. Funny the things you notice in a crisis. I also played with her grandson, to keep him entertained, but mostly to keep my self occupied. I had so much on my mind.\r\n\r\nI remembered Betsy, when she still lived in Charleston, and we were without contact with each other for days. I remembered Camille, when she was five months pregnant, and we huddled in my second floor flat in Gentilly, hoping to avoid any chance of flood waters getting to us. I recalled another storm and another evacuation to Hattiesburg to avoid a hurricane, only to have the storm change course and hit Hattiesburg instead. There we were in one hotel room, seven adults, one child, two dogs, two beds, with two cats in the car outside. We shared a joint history of all things good and bad, but mostly good.\r\n\r\nBut, this time, there were concerns about my mother, my dog, her cat, her house, my house, my car, wind damage, rising water, falling trees. The usual things you worry about in a hurricane. But, Carolyn made those worries less threatening. She had a calming presence.\r\n\r\nI told Cameron, her grandson, then three, that there was an ogre in the closet in the room we were staying in at his Great Aunt\'s house. The Ogre was named Oglethorpe and he liked to eat Little Blue Berry Boys. But, he was all out of Little Blue Berry Boys and so he would settle for Little Blue Eyed Boys for supper instead. Without missing a beat, little blue eyed Cameron said to me, \"My eyes are brown.\" I said, \"Your eyes are blue.\"\r\n\r\nWe didn\'t rejoice that the storm had passed and the city dodged a bullet, it seemed, but there was a dazed sense of relief. There was some street flooding, but nothing too unusual. There seemed to be an air of something pending for the sigh of relief was short lived. Then, the levee broke, then another and another and word of storm surges became real. Suddenly, we learned that most areas had 8 feet of water, some 8 feet of water on second floors. The entire city was being evacuated. Areas of safety, such as the Super Dome, were not safe. There were people in the Convention Center that no one knew about. People were dying in safe places as well as in their homes if they hadn\'t evacuated. There was a mandatory evacuation of the city. The city was in complete chaos. \r\n\r\nAt some point, I realized there was no going home, not now, and maybe, not ever. I wondered about where to go next, for I couldn\'t stay indefinitely with Carolyn\'s sister in law, when my cell phone rang. It hadn\'t been live for quite while, when the cell service in the 504 area code had been disrupted. Communication systems were inoperable or jammed.\r\n\r\nIt was my cousin, Jack, calling from Knoxville, tracking me down, calling to say that I would and could not be going home any time soon, if ever, and to come to Knoxville to live for a while or forever, which ever I decided. Within a couple of hours, I was on the way to the airport and to Jack\'s to live, indefinitely. Dealing with the unexpected became what was to be expected for a long time.\r\n\r\nBut, that meant leaving Carolyn behind and not knowing what would happen with her. Leaving Carolyn behind meant leaving the certainties of my childhood and adulthood. Leaving Carolyn behind meant leaving behind the security of knowing that she always had been there and always would be there for me, no matter what. I was leaving more than Carolyn behind.\r\n\r\nNot going home for a while meant that her chemo and radiation therapy for her cancer would be disrupted. Not a good thing. The treatment was crucial to her recovery.\r\n\r\nWhen I met Jack at the Knoxville airport, the first thing he said, \"Where\'s your passport?\" Since 9/11 I have always carried my passport. Why did he want to know? Was he concerned about security? Somehow the feeling I had after 9/11 were not unlike the feelings I was having, a numb, dead tired disposition, stuck in the here and now, with little window to the future. And, the strength that I felt in the familiar company of Carolyn was replaced with the uncertainty of not knowing what to expect next.\r\n\r\nHe wanted to know the where about of my passport, because he had booked a flight for me to Italy in two weeks. This seemed impossible to me. In the middle of a crisis, how could I think about leaving the country? I had to find my mother, my dog, her cat. There was my job. I had to deal with my house, my mother\'s house, get my car back. And, there was Carolyn. Somehow, he was sure I could accomplish all that I needed to in two weeks.\r\n\r\nBut, I said to him, \"Carolyn has cancer and this means her treatment is interrupted.\" He said, \"Get her here; I\'ll take care of it.\" Jack is a physician. So, as I faced the challenge of reaching her via cell phone with limited, unpredictable service, he began to make contact with his friends in the medical community to establish an avenue for continued treatment for Carolyn.\r\n\r\nShe and her husband were on the road the next day. When they arrived at Jack\'s for what was their first visit, it took a few days to establish what was needed to get her on a treatment schedule. There was no way to reach her physician. In Southeast Louisiana, no one was home. So, tests were run and she was once again in a treatment cycle with little interruption.\r\n\r\nInto her therapy about a week, Jack took me aside one night and said, breaking all hippa laws, that the prognosis for Carolyn was not positive. His colleges in Knoxville estimated that Carolyn had three to six months to live. Jack is a doctor, but he said, \"You have to tell her.\" I said, \"But, you\'re the doctor.\" And, he said, \"But, you know her better.\" That was true.\r\n\r\nHer colon cancer had spread to her liver and was attacking her spinal cord. If the cancer ventured too far into her spine, she would be paralyzed for the remainder of her diminished time. As it was, she was already in excruciating pain. But, she rarely complained. That was her motto, \"Don\'t Complain.\"\r\n\r\nBut, we had so much to complain about. Even so, we enjoyed those few weeks when we all lived together as extended family, getting to know each other as adults, getting to share family secrets and including the next generation in the discovery of the three youngest grandchildren of John Martin Lugenbuhl.\r\n\r\nI was closer to Carolyn than anyone else in the world. I was as close to her as I was my mother. She was the sister I never had. I don\'t remember when I didn\'t know her. There wasn\'t much about my life that she did know about. How could I lose someone who knew my entire adult history? If she died, surely, a part of me would die, too. I wanted to grow old with her. Not as old as now, but older, like our mothers, hers who died at 87 and mine who was still kicking at 92. She was not quite 63. It seemed impossible that in the midst of so much loss from Katrina, I would lose her, too.\r\n\r\nShe would invite me to shop with her for her school clothes when we were kids. I loved this. I loved shopping with her. I loved how clothes looked on her. And, I loved knowing that whatever we picked out would be all mine in a year or two. We were close.\r\n\r\nI was close to Jack, too. I am godmother to his three children. I am the sister he never had. But, life got between Jack and Carolyn. Seven years older than Jack, she was not as close to him as I was to either of them growing up. And, even though, he and I moved away from New Orleans, and we stayed in touch, he did not keep in touch with Carolyn as he did with me. I was the middle child in our little family of only children. After thirty years of no direct contact, she was welcomed into his home and the best care that he could arrange for her, because he knew how much she meant to me. During this crisis, I was to learn who my friends were, who my acquaintances were and that sometimes, I had the two confused.\r\n\r\nWhen Carolyn arrived, she was greeted by Jack\'s sons, Michael and Jay, and Jack\'s wife, Rebecca. Jack\'s children have no cousins in Knoxville. Their mother, the most understanding woman on earth, has two siblings, both single, no children. There are cousins on our side, but no one on our side close by or close in age to their generation. I am the only cousin they know. Now they are going to meet another cousin, who has children, who have children. They are delighted by the prospect.\r\n\r\nAs Carolyn walks into Jack\'s house for the first time to meet his family and see him for the first time in thirty years, both boys scream with delight and confident approval, \"You look just like Juju,\" their deceased grandmother, our Aunt Juliette, our fathers\' baby sister. They immediately fell in love with their cousin Carolyn. In fact, time had turned her features into Aunt Juliette\'s.\r\n\r\nRealizing that I had to tell her that her life expectancy was short, I asked Jack one night, as he sat perusing search engines on his computer, who surely had to do this a time or two in his professional history, \"How do you tell someone they\'re dying?\" His only answer was, \"It\'s never easy, but somehow you find a way\" \r\n\r\nOne night, soon thereafter, I was alone with Carolyn, unusual since her husband never left her side. I said to her, \"Carolyn, if the outcome of all your efforts is not what you would want it to be, is there anything that you want to do in the time you might have left?\" She and I had little unspoken between us, but she looked at me as though I had stolen her soul\'s darkest secret. I think she knew. I think it was her secret. Now, it was ours, safe but no longer all hers. She answered stoically, \"I\'ve had a good life.\"\r\n\r\nWhen I was 16 and she was 21, I went to New York for a week without her. It was during the World\'s Fair and I went to do dance workshops and go to plays. I had accumulated the cash to do this with two friends, so off I went. I knew she wanted to go, too, but circumstances didn\'t permit. It was always my hope that the two of us could do this together some day, take off to New York just the two of us. I had wanted to take her for her birthday, but time ran out.\r\n\r\nWe had traveled to Phoenix together as an extended family, gone was the hope of our special adventure for just the two of us. I regret that I didn\'t hide her in a suitcase and take her with me on so many previous solo trips to New York. \r\n\r\nTurning 60 is a big scary deal, especially if you\'re a woman. When her husband turned 60, she pulled out all the stops for the celebration. When she turned 60 on October 6, 2002, he couldn\'t get around to planning the event. As time passed, her daughters and friends and I, disappointed with his inaction, decided we would have a party for her, but on my birthday, November 30, so she wouldn\'t suspect. I gladly shared my day with her. It was a double celebration, her 60th and my birthday, even if it was to be her party. I had a party to go to on my birthday, at least!\r\n\r\nEventually, I located my mother. Eventually, we went to Italy, and Carolyn and her husband stayed at Jack\'s to continue her treatment. Eventually, after we returned, I left to return to New Orleans to get my car, so I could continue to work for Tulane from Knoxville, but she was there waiting for me when I returned. Eventually, I got the call that I no longer had a job, but she was there with me to share the news. I was shopping in Kohl\'s with Carolyn at the time. It was odd to get the call there, since I had been at one time the office ace for the original owners of Kohl\'s. Some how, having her with me at the early stages after Katrina made the horror and disbelief of it all bearable. \r\n\r\nEventually, Carolyn and her husband left Knoxville in October. The evacuation order was lifted, doctors had returned, and they were able to go back to Louisiana to their home and their life. \r\n\r\nI went back to New Orleans in November to close my house. I spent ten days packing and tossing, and emptying its contents to prepare moving things into storage in Knoxville. I had electricity by then, but no hot water. So, but the end of the week, finished packing, trucks loaded, I was grateful to head to the north shore, Carolyn\'s house and a hot bath. \r\n\r\nShe had changed so much in the few weeks since I\'d seen her. She was in a great deal of pain, but as usual, when we sat down to talk that night, she wanted to know all about me. And, she never complained! How was I spending my time in Knoxville? How was everyone in Knoxville? How was my mother? How was my job search coming? What did I find at my house? What did I find at my mother\'s house? What did I do with FEMA and insurance at my mother\'s house, since mid November was the first time I was able to get into my mother\'s neighborhood and house since the storm. It was odd to share the neighborhood with the National Guard. We talked and talked and talked. We somehow knew this was the last time we would talk, face to face. We stayed in touch by phone after that, but the memory of her attempting to find a comfortable position in the overstuffed chair in her living room as we talked and talked and talked will forever be emblazoned in my memory. This was the one person in life that I could share everything with and never feel judged, always feel understood, and she was slipping away.\r\n\r\nWe had lived apart before, but still remained close. You can have that with someone you know so intimately. You can live apart and still not miss a beat when you\'re back together, no matter how long the parting or how far the distance. \r\n\r\nWe didn\'t say good bye, but it was good bye. And, we both knew it. Who else should say good bye? Her daughters, my goddaughters.\r\n\r\nTiffany was living with her in-laws in Arkansas, adjusting to a new life. Holly was living with her in-laws in North Carolina, attempting to hold together a very unstable existence, compounded by Katrina.\r\n\r\nI called Tiffany\'s father in law and asked him to encourage Tiffany to go back to New Orleans to see her mother. It was important, because I knew Carolyn\'s time left was limited. Without violating a complete confidence, I conveyed a sense of urgency. Somehow, letting someone else share the burden of that news was an enormous relief. It was important for Carolyn to have one more visit from one, if not both, of her daughters and their children. Soon after, I got word that Tiffany had gone home to spend time with her mother.\r\n\r\nOn November 29, I got word from Tiffany, who was at her mother\'s bedside along with her dad, \"Aunt Leenie, Mom\'s gone.\" My heart sank. Carolyn very peacefully slipped away that morning.\r\n\r\nI spent my birthday November 30, 2005, driving back to New Orleans from Knoxville. I occupied my thoughts as I drove those 10+ hours, writing and rewriting her eulogy. I think she was there with me, because I was filled with love and reveled in the joy of reliving a few snippets of the years we had spent together being each other\'s \"sister.\" It seemed strange to arrive at her house that evening and find her not there. \r\n\r\nCole, her oldest grandson, then three, would tip toe around a corner of the house, saying, \"Grandma?\" expecting her to jump out playfully in some extemporaneous game. But, grandma was not there. It broke my heart. She would not be here to see how those four little boys turned out. They would never really know what a wonderful person their grandmother was.\r\n\r\nWhen Carolyn\'s father died, I asked her what we would do after the service. Her response was that she was going to Shaw School to put up a bulletin board. Life goes on, she said. And, so, it seemed appropriate on December 1, when I finally got permission to enter Tulane Med School for the first time since August 26, I left everyone after the service to pack up my 11th floor office. My little car was so weighted down. Maybe, she was there, as she had been for other moves I made, making silent suggestions on how to get the most benefit from the space I had.\r\n \r\nHer legacy surrounds me in so many ways, but mostly she had the family I never had. So, I am blessed that she left me her daughters and her grandsons. She would say to me, \"I have the most beautiful grandsons in the world.\" All grandmothers think this. But, she was right. She has the most beautiful grandsons in the whole world. And, she shares them with me. So, I share my memories of her with them. I am partly who I am today because of who she was.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n