Hurricane Katrina has taken all that my friend Tathy and her family owned, save the clothes on their backs, and one of their cats. 

It can't take her memories, but it took all the tangible things that remind her of her past. 

Tathy & Heather

The first day of eighth grade I was standing at the bus stop, waiting to go to Brandon Jr. High School in Virginia Beach.  I was lamenting a little that people had moved into the model home right there by the bus stop that I used to break into after school.  It was easy enough because they only locked the back door for some reason by putting a board in the sliding door track.  I would take a folder from school, slide it in between the doors and flip the board up. I loved going in there because it was cool and clean and quiet.  I would read the magazines and look at the pretend food in the fridge, maybe sit on the model furniture and read my homework assignments, then leave and go home across the street to my life’s chaos.  I wasn’t going to get to practice my breaking and entering skills or hang around the model this year absorbing the quiet calmness of the fake reality it suggested .

While staring and lamenting a girl walked out.  She was tall and thin and very cute, but her energy was so turned inward. 

Me, being a military brat and the new kid a jillion times, could tell she was suffering from an affliction I myself suffered many times, so I walked up and introduced myself to her.  She was friendly and I found out she was in seventh grade.  She had a thick southern accent I thought was way cool.  Tathy and I have been friends ever since. 

This is a photo of Tathy and me at my 18th birthday party (back in 1988 - yes my hair is stupid).  She bought me a dozen roses and a little gold ring. I kept those dried rose heads for about ten years!  I lost the ring early on :(

I can’t get into all of the drama of both of our lives right now, but we both had pretty rough childhoods.  Not as bad as some, but certainly bad enough to mess with our delicate impressionable spirits.

There had been times we lost touch for a while, but I would always find myself thinking of her. 

We had a big falling out at one point, later we reconnected, surprised, or maybe not too surprised, that we each had been thinking about the other.  I often felt more like family, like we were sisters.  I guess I still feel that way, even though I haven’t seen her since 2003 and we live very different types of lives, there is still that tug.

We have stayed in touch and at times call each other at the most desperate moments.

Sometimes I feel the stress of her life and try not to bother her with my stuff.  She is the mom of three small children and she is a nursing student and her husband is a police officer, they are hard working busy folks.  They have suffered many trials and tribulations over the years, as many of us have, but she always manages to be thankful for what she has, and I admire that.  I try to always do the same.

She doesn’t want to go back to Pascagoula – at least she doesn’t for now.  I don’t blame her.

If anything good can come of all of this, I hope it’s that she finds a town where she fits in well and makes friends easily.  I miss her a lot.  I hope she finds happiness and successes.

This is Tathy and her husband David, one of them is obviously from when David was in the military.  And the others are from 2003 when David was away and Tathy, Shelby, Makenzie and Carter came to visit us.(Jade is in the pink dress in the background, Tathy's girls are playing the video game).

I have not been watching the television as much today.  I have been working on what I can do to help.  Plus I keep feeling like if I can wait just a little while, when I turn the news on, some of it will actually be good.  I also realize that waiting for me, as tough as it is, is nothing compared to waiting in filth and stench while you're starving and your loved ones are dying around you.

I have to try and find something to hope for and focus on because right now there is nothing I can do about those other things.  Not now anyway.  It's impossible.

Also, please see my previous post if you are interested in sending notes or anything to my friend Tathy and her family.  They are just so happy to be alive.  I'm happy for that too.  I can't imagine how life looks through these people's eyes right now.

Peace.