So, to continue the story...
The week was moving on and question of going home, not to mention the question of there being a home to go back to, were bubbling to the surface in all of us. My mother and her fiance were gearing up to make the trip back to Pascagoula from Tallahassee, FL. Tallahassee had become a waystation for those fleeing the storm and it seemed that everyone in the hotel they met was from Louisana or the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Everyone was glued to their televisons, waiting now for a glimpse of the aftermath and hoping to see their own neighborhood.

Hoping may not be the right word. How can I explain the absolute compulsion you feel to scan the web and tv, trying to see your own house or those of your neighbor? You want to and you don't want to at the same time. You're driven to find out what you can and scared to death of what you may or may not find.

When pictures of Pascagouls finally did surface, it was grim. I found our local newspaper's website (The Mississippi Press) and there were pictures of our Beach Blvd. Looking at these pictures, the only comparison I could make was of pictures I had seen of Tokyo in 1945, after the incendiary bombing. Tokyo was made up largely of wood houses then, if my memory of contemporary history serves, and the bombing simply leveled the city. Where there were houses previously, there were piles of ash.

I've since driven down Beach Blvd., and it's a similar feeling. It's not a matter of houses that were flooded (although those are everywhere, too, including my own), but a matter of houses simply not being there anymore. They're gone, with only a foundation remaining, with roofs sitting directly on the concrete slab as if a giant hand swept away everything in between.

These are the pictures I saw first. When talking to my mom after seeing these pictures, I didn't want her to go home. I didn't want her (and soon thereafter, me) to find our little house gone. For some reason the thought of it just not being there anymore was the worst fear I had. I imagine that some people would find it a better option, almost cathartic in its totality, but I couldn't bear to think of an entire house just wiped away. Where would be the evidence that people had lived there? That life, death, love and laughter had happened there? That house is our little monument, proclaiming we had been there.

Although I don't know for sure, I suspect this was going through my mom's mind as well. They were ready to get back. The roads were not ready for them to go back, but that did not matter. There was a house to return to and family and friends with which to reconnect as soon as possible. Life had to be reestablished, so they came back west, then north, then south again to Pascagoula.

Our house had flooded, but it was still there. I'll have pictures soon from my time down in Pascagoula. We were grateful for that, but the business of getting back to "normal" was just around the corner...