\r\nIt Just Came\r\n\r\n It wasn\'t something I asked for; it isn\'t something that I would give a friend, but looking back, I suppose it was a gift. It just came in an ugly package and it certainly didn\'t have a shiny bow on top. But, 2005 gave me a whole new perspective of what my standards of happiness would be. \r\n It was not that 2005 was bad, our family was settling back into a new school year. My husband and I refined our massive 20 foot pond in the backyard. I was anxiously waiting for the opening of a new pink water lily bloom. The flower was a Father\'s Day gift to Bill that year. Our goldfish swam through the water like shooting stars in the darkness. It gave me such joy to see the finished product tucked into our yard. Our one acre lot was full of pine trees that looked up to the sky, so tall and comforting. The Honey Island swamp wrapped around our neighborhood and was home to blue cranes and sunning alligators.\r\n As we drove down the driveway on that Saturday afternoon, I looked back at the front of the house and told my husband that I thought our yard looked prettier than I had ever seen it. That was a true statement...I wondered if I had my camera, but I didn\'t. I had no idea that would be the last time I would see my house like that.\r\n Our minivan was packed with our son, daughter, dog, cat, and school backpacks. My children wanted to know how long we would be gone. I thought we could drive back on Tuesday or Wednesday. My mind was full of new gardening ideas and how I was proud of myself for picking up the house so it would be nice to come home to. The evacuation made a simple 6 hour trip to Houston twist into a 13 hour sentence filled with the hissing and crying of our cat. We awoke Sunday morning with my parent\'s edition of the Houston paper on the counter and a huge red circle on the front cover and the path of the storm straight for Slidell, Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina was making her grand appearance and it seemed as if she wanted a lot of attention. I was already sick of hearing and talking about it. \r\n\r\n\r\n Bill and I leave Houston before dawn on Thursday morning to make our way back to Slidell. My sister and nephew have volunteered to come and help out. The oddest thing about this trip is passing a sign that said \"New Orleans-Closed\" How do you close a whole city? We skirt around a few main exits, and make our way into Slidell and towards our neighborhood. It is an eerie feeling coming back; it is so very quiet, no one around. We dodge trees and wires dangling in the road. Boats are misplaced out of the water and resting in the streets. There are grave crypts tossed in the trees and ditches along the swamp by our house. My brain tells me that it is evident there was a massive amount of water and wind that had come through. My heart is telling me that my life has just changed ...I feel nauseas. My street is plagued with fallen trees, branches, and alien objects I have never seen before. After moving some of the debris, we drive up as far as we can on the driveway, stop the car, and stare. The men get out...I sit and cry on my sister\'s lap. I was not prepared for the unspeakable conditions of my surroundings. Change is everywhere. There isn\'t a place to look that doesn\'t remind you of what had passed through. \r\n The four of us struggle to open the front wooden door with the intricate beveled glass. The house is a one story plantation with four large white columns and a patterned brick walkway with an incredible southern charm. The curved brick steps up to the house are speckled with fuzzy, tiny ferns in the cracks and green moss. Those steps held my children\'s jack-o-lanterns, the perfect spot for blowing bubbles, and the backdrop for many cheesy family photos. The moisture from inside has swelled the door tight. Oh, the smell...putrid, rotten, wet! We quickly open windows and doors to catch the non-existent breeze. Oh God, it is so hot and humid! \r\n The beauty of the wall of glass along the backside of the house now frames the immense destruction of our backyard. I refuse to look. It is too much. My mind is racing over what needs to be done. The day is an assembly line of room to room dragging of belongings to the street. At first, you look at each item...later...just get the job done. A mechanical movement. Cut the carpet...drag it. Cut the padding...drag it. Cut the walls...drag it. Cut the insulation...drag it. Bag it up...drag it. An emotionless movement. Everything is so heavy and wet. I am so sick of being so wet and messing with all of my belongings that are so wet! I remember buying that...that was a gift from someone...David won that in first grade...everything has a story; it doesn\'t matter. \r\n We take a small break outside. My exhaustion is outweighed by my concern of having no flood insurance; we were told our house is built too high. Then the silence is louder than my voice. It is so quiet. There are no animals. No birds, no squirrels, no toads or lizards, no insects, nothing. That kills me. I find a dead squirrel lying on our driveway and a lifeless hummingbird draped in my garden. They are so small and it wasn\'t something they asked for, it just came.\r\n We work as long as we can till darkness and exhaustion sets in. This is a long night, I don\'t sleep. I am scared. I sleep with a pistol in my left hand and a flashlight in the other...all night. Straight on my back, not moving. I feel so alone, so removed from civilization, so sad.\r\n Morning is greeted with more of the same monotonous labor. It feels so foreign to destroy your house. It doesn\'t matter. I learn to raise my level of apathy to get through this. Just keep throwing things away. That is basically what it comes down to. The garage is worse than the house, it is slightly lower. The car is flooded. We trudge out to the workshop area. Along the way, I can see the remains of my atrium garden. I treasured the walk down the uneven rock path and being escorted on both sides with hydrangeas, impatiens and azaleas. The promenade walk stops at the long window in the kitchen area. Cooking and chores were constantly interrupted by daydreaming out that window and into a scream of color. Bill held baby bunnies in that garden, Caroline searched for snails and doodle bugs in the wet rocks, me... I just loved it. I can\'t resist moving the heavy pieces of fallen debris off some of the plants. Now they can bring their branches back up and relax, I feel better. \r\n Nothing in the workshop is savable. This building is considerably lower than the house and apparently consumed by swamp water. My stomach aches again. This was Bill\'s man cave, his place to go...play his crazy music...use his girl repellent and work with a huge carnival of tools and instruments that I can\'t begin to understand how to use. I remember when he found all the cabinets, made a manly deal, drug them all home and installed them just perfect for him. Now we will tear them out...throw them with the rest of our things...in the street. We hope that is the right thing to do, in the street, there is no one to ask, no one else is here, who is in charge anymore? \r\n We try to make our way to the left side of the lot, where our pond is, it is impossible to walk. We walk to the front of the house and try from a different direction, impossible to walk. All the beauty from the tall, comforting trees now are intertwined on the ground like some sort of evil, Chinese puzzle game. My sister and I climb up and over, under and around and make it to the back gate. She does not go any further, I continue on by myself. Nothing will stop me from seeing the back yard, not that it is a yard anymore, grass does not exist. Under the stack up of huge, rough tree trunks...I see it... it is my pond. I can only see bits and pieces down below. I balance my feet on the horizontal trunks, a type of balance beam routine. And there, in a visible crack between the trunks, I notice the shining gold teardrop shaped bodies with the girly flowing fan tails floating on the top of the pond. I tear up. I hope that they weren\'t scared when it came through; I suppose that they went to the bottom of the pond. If all the land was covered with water, how did they manage to stay in the pond? It doesn\'t matter. The top of the pond water is shiny and iridescent, pretty actually. A thin layer of gas or oil reflects on everything. I don\'t really care what it is. And there, in a small opening between the fallen pine trees, is the pink water lily bloom. Standing tall and graceful, a lone piece of beauty among the destruction. Like a girl in a pink dress standing all alone at a school dance, there she was. I cry.\r\n\r\n In the front yard, the fallen trees on the ground are decorated with wet belongings and treasures trying to dry in the moist air. A kind of sick Christmas with a Picasso type theme of mis-matched ornaments. We line up overstuffed bags of ruined toys, clothes, food and things from the house in an orderly fashion on the front walk and street. The rest of this dismal day is consumed with dragging, hauling and stacking up. We try to conserve room in the street, not knowing when it will be picked up. \"Do you want this?\" I am asked. I can\'t even comprehend what I\'m doing or what I will do next, and the thought of deciding the fate of what you\'re holding in your hand is unthinkable. My body is sticky, hot, tired and disgusted from having my house, my life, pulled apart and evaluated. \r\n The setting of the sun is our mark to quit. We decide to make the long drive back to Houston through the night instead of sleeping at our house again. We do not feel safe in the darkness. We roll fallen trees to block off our street, a barricade to deter unwanted vehicles while our house is open and drying out. We will return in a few days. My chest and stomach is spotted red from hives, a blotchy watercolor drawing. Excitement sets in when we hit a lit up city after a few hours. A place to eat, a cold drink, cleanliness. It is four in the morning when our minivan hits my parent\'s driveway and we turn the key in their front door. The door easily opens, the crisp smell of my mother\'s lavender and rose petals waft past my face. The back window frames my father\'s pond adorned with a dancing fountain and light from below. It consumes me...the beauty, the smell, the furniture, my children\'s pictures, the comfort of the carpet under my feet. The guilt from the envy I was feeling was disappointing to me. I sit on the floor and cry.\r\n\r\n It was at that moment that I was handed my gift, although it will take another year or two to open it. I thought I had control over my life, now I am humbled. I thought I could never live without certain things, now I do. I thought that it was the belongings that I lost that would be the most painful, but it isn\'t. It was seeing the sadness in everyone\'s eyes, driving past a home of a friend that doesn\'t exist anymore, and bringing my children back to their home for the first time after the storm. \r\n Each and every day I am given the opportunity to laugh, slow down, and simply do something that makes me smile. And each and every time that I slip my key into the doorknob of my house, I am thankful. \r\n That is my gift!\r\n\r\n Julie Frey\r\n \r\n \r\n \r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n