Saturday, September 03, 2005

Grief

I went to a Graduate Student function with mr. delagar last night, though I didn't much want to. First off, I don't like parties. Never really have. Parties are large crowds of strangers talking about things that don't matter in large, noisy, bright rooms. Everything I hate.

Also, of course, I hardly felt like a party: though I had just gotten the good news about my brother being safe, still -- his apartment, my youngest brother's house, and probably my parents' house (we're not sure about that yet) have all likely been destroyed or at least badly damaged, and certainly none of them can go home in the foreseeable future. My oldest brother lives in Destrehan, about twenty miles out of the city, and they don't think that area flooded, so if the power gets restored there sometime soon, he can go home -- well, eventually.

But meanwhile, my entire family are refugees. Quite possibly most of them have lost nearly everything they own. My mother is in rampant denial. My brothers are staying with relatives throughout the South. My parents are wandering from hotel to hotel. (I keep saying come here, but they aren't, so far.) Not to mention, down in New Orleans, people are dying in the streets. I don't feel like a party. I go anyway, because mr. delagar wants to.

There's a fund drive for Katrina victims. That cheers me up.

But this -- guy -- come up to me, and says, "I hear you have family in New Orleans."

"I do," I say. I expect sympathy. I have been getting sympathy from people, all week.

"About time that toilet got flushed," he says, and proceeds to tell me about how New Orleans used to be a great city and how it sucks these days, how everything that was good about it has been gone for years, and how much better Fort Smith is than New Orleans, and how he's glad he left. Yap yap yap.

People are dying down there, and he gives me this.

He's lucky I wasn't armed.

3 comments:

zelda1 said...

When fucktards like that use metaphors like "flushing toilets" to express their thoughts, which, by the way, are not thoughts at all, on the death and destruction of an entire city, well, it makes me want to do more than hit him in the eyes with things, really sharp, it makes me want to take them to the nearest toilet and flush their faces down in the messiest one there and see if they then like their metaphor.
That is as bad as the fucktards like my husband saying, "the government responded as fast as they could and you can't expect them to go in there around all those rioting people." I say, "Yes, that is exactly what I expect. I expect the government to act like a parent and go in there and restore order, fix it, make people comfortable, get them out, to safety, to other homes."
Don't listen to people who say awful things about one of the most colorful and creative cities in the world. I, although have only driven through, am grieved over what has happened, and it will go in my memory as horrific a picture as the Oklahoma bombing victims being pulled from the buildings, from the twin towers crashing down and all those people screaming and coming out of the thick smoke maimed and torn and others buried alive, it will go down in my book as horrific as the day the bomb was dropped on all thoes innocent Japanese citizens in order to restore peace, the only way the then president knew. There are some memories that never fade. That little girl carrying the stray dog, the woman holding her crying baby, the man begging for water for his children, and the old woman crying that she was in the projects and couldn't get out, as well as the dead bodies being pulled by their loved ones to a place where they could get treated with respect and not left on the sidewalk. God, this is America not some third world country. How can anyone think these people are disposible and can be flushed, or did he forget that there were people still there?

Anonymous said...

Hate is an onion that unpeeled stings the eyes, a layer of ignorance, covered by a thin layer of "sympathy." The water will soon enough subside, but the hate will linger on to rot in the sun. Sorry to hear your family like so many others is caught in the swirl of tragedy and hope some ablution will wash us all clean again.

Best to you and to your family and to all who search for dignity and some peace in the muck.

Anonymous said...

I'm so sorry. I'm glad your family is getting to safer places. Take extra care of yourself.