The Anniversary

And so we made it through another Katrina anniversary. The president mentioned us in his weekly radio address, and pledged once again, as his predecessor did before him, that New Orleans would be rebuilt and that lessons would be learned for the future about dealing with disasters in our country.

We haven't actually seen either thing come to pass.

The tv, radio, Internet and newspapers were filled with stories and essays and photos. There were different memorial events held around town, with varying degrees of grief and anger on display.

I didn't go to any of them this time, but I know many people did.

Folks at church have different ways of coping -- some go into hibernation and avoid all mention of it; some read selectively; some share more of their own stories of survival and recovery; some go silent. A few people threw parties instead of more solemn remembrances. Some, like Big Man and I, had occasion to go to a church and light candles. Others blew it off, and a few -- a very few, I'm sure -- said that it completely went past them, that it went by without their realizing. (And maybe that could actually be true for a few people.)

How long will it be until there are no more watermarks, floodlines, to be seen around town? How long til all the houses are repaired, and streets fixed, and libraries and schools and clinics and hospitals reopened? How long til hurricane season stops causing nightmares? How long til all New Orleanians who want to come home? How long til we have visionary strong leadership, to bring us out out of the morass of corruption, buffoonery, and cronyism? How long?

And how long will it be before ill-natured and bad-tempered and bloody-minded people elsewhere in the country stop questioning our very right to existence, the government's sacred obligation to fund the rebuilding of our levees and the restoration of our wetlands, the right and even the necessity for all exiled New Orleanians to come home?

Saddest, most poignant, story of the 4th anniversary: NOLA.com reports that local funeral homes are doing record-breaking business shipping bodies back to New Orleans for burial. For too many in the Diaspora, that's the only way they get to come home.