Saturday, July 22, 2017
Getting to the Ground Zero Museum (and to the Ground Zero of My Heart)
When I heard that there was a Katrina museum near my house
while I was home for enough time to check it out, I could not stop thinking
about it. Since it was only opened for
limited hours and days, I had to finagle to make it work. The last day before I left, my Mom and I went
to the Ground Zero Museum in Waveland, Mississippi. It was a novel concept to me – I am going to
a museum about something that I lived through.
I have been to a lot of museums in my day, but this was different. It was personal.
I was not sure what I was walking into because I have to be
in the right headspace to even talk about Hurricane Katrina. It was this day or waiting months until the
next time I was down, so ready or not, here I was. I was not sure what I was going to see, but I
was a little hesitant that in 3D form something that inhabits my worst reoccurring
nightmares would be represented. This
would not be a dream that jolts me awake in cold sweats. This would be something I would see, touch,
hear, and feel.
It was impossible to not be transported through space and
time when I looked up at the timeline on the wall of the events that unfolded
for this ravaging hurricane. I went
through my own personal timeline. I was
doing this here on this day and so on and so forth.
There was a room that represented what the houses looked
like after the storm. I had to remind
myself to keep breathing and in this moment on this day I was okay. This was not my current reality,
thankfully. We had been there and done
that.
A museum about Hurricane Katrina? I felt like I could have created my own
museum on this storm. In a way, all the
survivors are living museums of what we saw and experienced. The artifacts looked so much like what we had
to sort through and throw away. And I
was reminded of that horrible day that we pretty much had to throw all our
possessions to the road for the garbage man to pick up. And I remembered that thought I had then that
it would have been better to come back to just a foundation rather than have to
physically be reminded of what we once had that was no longer safe to
keep.
A tour started pretty soon after we got there, and we just
started walking with the group to hear what the tour guide said. At the end, she finally asked us where we
were from. Once she learned that we had
lived through this experience she said that we could have given the tour. Yes, we could have, but I wanted to be alone
with my thoughts to process my reflections.
I wanted to linger at certain parts, like the gratitude tree. Yes, we were and continue to be so thankful
for all the outpouring of help from volunteers at this time. Some pieces I did not want to linger by –
like a case full of things that looked like what we had to throw out of our
house.
But at the heart of it – at the ground zero of my heart – I have
to appreciate the resilience that it taught me.
September 11th was jarring, but Hurricane Katrina was so much
more personal to me. Katrina took away an
innocence I had about the world. Bad
things can and do happen. And sometimes
I fear things that I did not know to fear before Katrina. I always think of the worst-case scenario, no
matter how bizarre it may be to do so. To
see the strongest people you know in your life break down and lose it was
eye-opening. To feel like this is the
moment that you are an adult because you have to stand up and fight through
this was pivotal in my life.
For better or worse, I am not the same person I used to
be. Things that used to bother to me do
not. I go through this mental checklist –
do I have water, electricity, a shelter, hot food? Well, then, I guess it is not that bad. I am calm in stressful situations. People have commented on how I just keep at
the same level even when things get crazy like in the delivery room, and I am the
first one to react with a game plan in a crisis. Katrina brought that out in me.
There is a video clip in one of the rooms about Katrina and
how you may not have gone through this, but the hope is that you see people’s
stories and realize that if they got through this, you can get through whatever
you are going on in your life. Sometimes
I have to be reminded of that. I have to
remember just how bad things were and just because things felt that bad then
they would not feel that way forever.
And they did not. We all grew so
much through the journey of Hurricane Katrina.
It took over a year to get the house rebuilt, and just because the house
was rebuilt did not mean that we were.
It took much longer for that to happen.
But little by little, bit by bit, day by day, we grew stronger and more
resilient.
Much like the Maranda Lambert song, “The House That Built Me,”
I had to go to the Ground Zero Museum.
The pictures and artifacts held stories for me. I had to touch this place and feel it. And standing in that museum I was reminded of
who I once was. In a strange way, this
experience built me into who I am today. Through the brokenness, there was
healing and growth. Sometimes you just
have to reflect on how far you have come.
Because as Old Dominion sings, “You can’t keep the ground from shaking
no matter how hard you try. You can’t
keep the sunsets from fading. You’ve got
to treat your life like you’re jumping off a rope swing because maybe because
the whole thing is really just a shot in the dark.” At times that is what the experience of
Katrina felt like – on a rope swing, not much stability, you may scream a
little and want to close your eyes, but eventually you jump and plunge into the
next chapter.
And, luckily, we are still standing. #resiliency
For more information on the museum, check out http://www.wavelandgroundzero.com/.
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