Lost & Betrayed (An American Tale)

. I helped many Tsunami and hurricane victims in the state of Florida. The children were growing quickly, and I felt as if I had been blessed with two wives because of the closeness I had with my brother’s wife. My parents were healthy, and we all emerged as strong participants in our local church. My wife and I were blessed with a son eleven months ago, and life was great.

            However, all this changed on August 28, 2005.

As we sat at home hearing the plea for everyone to evacuate because of Hurricane Katrina, we came to the conclusion that we had nowhere to go. Most of the Washington family members were living from check to check, so we not only had no place to go, but we had no means to get there even if we did have somewhere to go. The sad part was most of the wealthy had already vacated, leaving the poor behind to fend for themselves.

            As the last one to serve in the military, and since my brother was just coming into his own at the age of seventeen, I knew the responsibility rested entirely on me to be the protector of this family. So, I began to collect all of the members of our family and friends who didn’t have any place to go and relocated them to six homes we identified as the safest due to their location from the levy system. We averaged about twenty individuals per home, with about seventy-five percent being children, ninety percent being women and ten percent being the elderly, most of which fell into more than one category.

After my brother and I finished boarding up all the homes, we found ourselves at my house with our parents and my two youngest children. My wife wanted to lend support to my brother’s wife in her time of need, and my oldest son felt his mother needed his protection; he would therefore assume the role as man of the house during my absence. Their decisions were not surprising to me since she was the loving and giving woman I had married, always placing the needs of others before her own, and he was the being the man I was raising him to be. My younger brother stayed with me to help take care of the elderly and children located in our home.

            Now that the houses were all battened down and we were bracing for the storm, we prayed and sang songs. The one song I remember most was entitled “The Storm Is Passing Over”. 

I can still recall the last moments before the storm. I remember walking next door to sit on the front steps with my wife and son to encourage them and let them know how much I love them, but most of all, I just wanted to be in their presence.