Hope

I had the opportunity to speak with “my” client for the first time yesterday. I was nervous when I picked up the telephone to make the call. The office that I am working in was quiet, but I did not know exactly how to start the conversation. I was, as is typical for me, overly prepared for the call. I had done hours of sifting through papers and typing up exactly what questions to ask. I had poured over and over the documents to make sure that I understood as best I could my client’s situation. Then I picked up the phone to make the call.

When I heard the voice at the other end of the line I felt immediately at ease. Although I was ready to start my interrogation as efficiently and thoroughly as possible, I found that my client answered most of the questions without my having to ask. I just listened. I was new to him – just a little voice at the end of the line, calling on behalf of The Pro Bono Project. I could tell that he was happy to talk to someone regarding his case, regarding his life. He wanted me to know his story.

I listened to my client for more than thirty minutes as he detailed his Katrina experience and how it changed his life. After Katrina hit, he was relocated to Texas. All of his relatives were scattered across the Deep South. He had no telephone numbers and no way to reach anyone. He lost loved ones and friends. In essence, my client lost everything but the clothes on his back and the shoes on his feet. He lost everything, he said, but he still came home – home being New Orleans. He will never be back in the place he once lived because it is no longer there. I didn’t know what to say other than how sorry I was for his loss (losses). He said that he has good days and bad days. He said that he has hope that it will all be okay because he is alive today.

Molly, Jay and I traveled to the 9th Ward yesterday. The sky was beginning to gray, which was fitting as we took Rampart Street over the bridge and into the 9th Ward. It didn’t take long to see what looked like a bomb went off. Foundations were all that was left of most of the houses – large gray slabs of concrete lay side by side along the streets. It looked like a ghost town. The businesses and fast food restaurants that lined the lanes were boarded up and empty. Grass was beginning to grow in the cracks of the parking lots. Everything around looked filthy.

We weaved up and down many of the residential streets. One of the homes reminded me of the tin man’s house from the movie The Wizard of Oz. The home was surrounded by big trees, with arms that stretched and twisted and curved like those trees from the movie. The color of the house was brown and gray and the roof near the front of the house slumped down so far that it almost touched the ground. Its “backbone” seemed to curve like a spine – up and then down. I could see furniture through the broken windows and the front entrance. Piles of garbage flanked both sides of the house. Rusted cars were toppled next to each other, one against the other. Some of the houses looked like skeletons. The bricks and frame held the structure strong. Once you looked inside, however, all you could see was wood beams and empty space.

People still walk these streets. Children play outside. FEMA trailers parked outside of many of the houses hold upwards of four to five family members at one time. Imagine looking at your home – damaged and devastated – through the window of a trailer that is now resting on your front lawn. One of the men that we spoke with has to send his two grandchildren, one year apart, to separate schools that are literally at two different ends of town. These children now live with their grandparents in the FEMA trailer parked outside their grandparents’ home. He said that water was seeping up from under the trailer, making his wife sick. Like my client that I had spoken with earlier that day, I think that these people had hope because they are alive. They want to persevere and they want to remain near their home – even if it means living in a FEMA trailer and waiting for relief to come.

As we drove back to the hotel, Molly and Jay talked about the two little boys that are now living with their grandparents. If the grandparents are now raising the children, where are their parents? None of us said anything, nor did we venture to guess, because I think that we all felt like we already knew the answer.