Seems much has changed recently ,,in many areas,,in many ways. A fresh start never hurts. Well sometimes it hurts,,but sometimes it's forced on us. We deal with it. Our options here are? Exactly. Head up, shoulders back, chocolate in each hand,,we deal with it.

So many thoughts. New Orleans,,a favorite city,,she will bounce back. Her people,,they too will bounce back. One of my patients ,,a beautifully elegant woman in her 70s,,she held my hand and walked the hospital grounds with me this week and talked. And talked. And cried. And talked. She looked at me with tears running down her cheeks and told me the story. A wonderful story. A little girl in long ago New Orleans. Skipping down the sidewalk in front of her grandmothers house. Playing hide and seek in the lush green yards behind the wrought iron fences. Swinging from the low hung branches of the massive ancient trees. Courting on the wide front porch under the watchful eyes of her extended family. A wedding reception in the backyard. Giving birth in the upstairs room where generations of her family had drawn their first breath. Watching her own family grow. Burying her husband of nearly 50 years. The comfort that family and friends bring. The grandfather clock that had marked her every hour for her entire life. The fragrant blooms that had welcomed spring to her city, to her neighborhood, to her world,,for generations and generations. The fish in the pond that she and her grandson fed every day just as she and her grandmother had done. The tatted lace christening gown worn by every baby in the family for as long as anyone could remember. She herself had worn it as had her grandmother and her grandmothers mother. The kneading board for making biscuits and Sunday rolls,,touched by loving hands that ruled the kitchen in the family home for countless generations. The little things. Gone. All gone. Memories and tears are all she and her family have left. Her grandson will not court from those steps. Her daughter will not take a grandbaby to see the fish in the backyard. The clock has stopped marking the hours. I cannot fathom her loss. It is beyond the scope of my reality. Wearing jeans,,,her first encounter with denim,, that someone else had selected and donated to a center and a tshirt left over from a fundraiser,, this elegant graceful woman shed tears of gratitude to the Texas people that were befriending and helping her,,and tears of sorrow at what she had been pulled away from and lost forever. It wasn't just "stuff". It was the lifeblood of her family. It was her life,,her entire history. Her familys history. All gone. No more feather beds in third story bedrooms. No more clipping flowers from the cutting garden. No more recipe cards handwritten in the elaborate painstaking penmanship of her grandmother. Gone. Washed away. Pray for them,,these new Texans. Try to understand or even imagine their loss. How would we,,the proud arrogant Texans that we are,,respond? Pray for us all.

Listening to: Marc Broussard
Reading: Revelations