At last! My friend returned home Monday after vacationing in New Orleans and being caught in Hurricane Katrina. The pain in my heart has eased, but not yet gone. While she has returned home safe, I still believe there is a long road ahead for her.
I can hear the sadness in her voice. She is quite and withdrawn. She has changed. How could she not? I know, odds are, I will be told 100+ times that I can't possibly understand just what she and her husband have gone through and how it has forever changed their lives. I know she is right, and no matter how hard I try it may just never be enough. But I believe with all that I am, that sometimes we go through things to learn a life lesson. Who knows what the lesson is? Perhaps it's to have a little more faith, or maybe a little more patience, perhaps to draw the two of them closer together. And sometimes, I believe we are placed somewhere at a certain point and time to benefit others as well. I believe this was a large part why she was there at that time.
I hope as time goes by, her memories of Katrina wont be just about all the pain and sadness but also about about what she has gained and learned. I hope the people that surrounded her and gave her courage will be there in 5, 10 and 20 years down the road as true friends. I hope that they will not disapoint her and what she believes their connection is. I hope in a month, or a year or five years, when everyone else in the world has moved onto whatever may be the latest breaking news, I hope she will have a peace within her and know within her heart, that she is a survivor, a giver. And that at a time when her life ceased to be as she knew it, she came through with flying colors. I also hope she knows that while I may not have been there with her, my heart was........ I hope she knows that no matter what, "I" will be there in 5, 10 and 20 years.
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