Sitting by the glass door at my parents’ house in Livingston, Louisiana, I remember coloring page after page of the coloring book my mother bought especially for the storm when a cracking sound reminiscent of lightning—but deeper—echoed. I looked up in time to see the neighbor’s oak tree falling into our backyard, giant splinters pointing toward the sky.
I like to imagine that I used pink and yellow crayons that day, but the reality is that I don’t remember that much. Often, I forget that I lived through Katrina until someone brings it up. I was young, almost 5 years old, so my memories from Katrina have the quality of a dream that contains just enough realism to trick your unconscious mind into believing that it just might have happened.
In another memory, I am clinging to my father’s legs, the wind pushing me into him. The clouds above us are green, and I am holding him for dear life as he laughs up at the sky. Later, the power went out, and my mother filled the tubs with cold water in preparation for the days ahead. Gray light streamed from the windows as dark clouds obscured the sun.
When we finally traveled to my grandmother’s house in Port Allen, Louisiana, I was restless. I recall lying across her couch with my coloring book while she asked me if I was homesick.
“What’s that?” I asked.
Twenty years later, I am living and working in Jackson, Mississippi. My family moved from Louisiana shortly after Katrina. In Mississippi, preparations are underway to remember the storm and the legacy she left in her wake.
At the Two Mississippi Museums in Jackson, the looming anniversary was honored by the opening of a temporary photography exhibition. Across Gautier, Waveland, Pass Christian and Biloxi, listening sessions are allowing community members to share their stories. In Biloxi and Gulfport, memorial ceremonies will honor each of the lives lost during the storm.
Similar events will occur throughout the city of New Orleans. During the last time I was in New Orleans, my mother asked our Uber driver how long he had lived there. When he said he was a native of the city, she asked him if he had been there for the storm.
“Yeah. But we don’t talk about that here anymore,” he responded.
While some process their grief through photography, through writing and by remembering hardships, others have not yet peeled back the layers of their grief. What others may choose to release is held. Katrina, like many disasters, exposed both the best and worst of humanity.
‘We Can’t Measure Suffering’
Mississippi is a land where families remain rooted in place for decades. In my home church, in Progress, Mississippi, there were congregants whose families had attended the same place of worship for a hundred years. Meeting new people in Mississippi means at least 15 minutes will be spent identifying what community and family connections the newcomer might share. I used to just tell people I was from Louisiana. But I soon learned that didn’t seem to be the right answer.
“You’re not from New Orleans, are you?” I don’t know who said it, but the words are a stinging distant memory. I had said that my parents moved our family from Louisiana in 2006.
I would be lying if I said that I believe that long ago comment was well intentioned. I would be lying if I said I never felt that there was a stigma attached to being from Louisiana. At one of my first jobs an employer actually said to me, “You’re the first person I’ve met from there who isn’t an alcoholic.”
People cope with their traumas differently. In the rush of media attention directed at the tragedies in New Orleans following Katrina, reports on the status of the Mississippi Gulf Coast were few. As a result, it was left to the affected residents of the Mississippi communities to carry on the memories of life, before, during and after Katrina. I believe that this is why we have seen such a large effort put into memorials and celebrations in Mississippi for this monumental anniversary.
We can’t measure suffering. All suffering deserves compassion. We cannot say to two people who have both lost their homes and loved ones that one of their losses is “bigger” than the other. To do so is to dishonor the pain that both parties have felt. Rather than pitting two areas against one another, we must acknowledge the unique sufferings experienced—for even disparate circumstances have the opportunity to create common ground.
Two things can be true at once: Mississippi was neglected in the present-day media following Katrina, but the intense coverage on New Orleans left many with only a stigmatized idea of what Louisiana is.
This MFP Voices opinion essay reflects the personal opinion of its author(s). The column does not necessarily represent the views of the Mississippi Free Press, its staff or board members. To submit an opinion for the MFP Voices section, send up to 1,200 words and sources fact-checking the included information to voices@mississippifreepress.org. We welcome a wide variety of viewpoints.