A Home, A Heart…
October 20, 2006
I received a phone call yesterday from the director of the non-profit that I worked for all summer bearing some news that has been burdening me ever since. She called and shared with me that one of the house that we gutted had been torn down. Now, those words are so simple, all eleven of them. But it’s what has transpired within those words that ached last night.
The house that we worked on (gutted) belonged to a woman named Julie. Julie is a single mother of three children; she works at a local casino and is a homeowner. The house was a two bedroom ranch style with blue siding, with a carport/shed thing beside it. Now, when I say gutted, I mean that we went into the house for at least 7 days and worked from about 7am until between noon and 2 depending on the heat of the day. And we were decked out from head to toe in gear to protect us from the lead, asbestos and 3 types of mold that had been growing since Katrina-almost a year prior. Ty-vek suits, goggles, steel-toed boots, latex gloves, work gloves, ear-plugs, a hard hat and a respirator mask-that’s what we wore every single day. I can’t be sure of the temperature inside of the Ty-vek suits when we were inside the houses, but what I do know is that within about 30 minutes the clothes worn beneath were soaked. Yeah, like ‘I’ve just crawled out of a pool’ soaked.
The thing is, is that’s not what bothers me the most. We gutted about 11 houses while I was in New Orleans (I think). There are a few things that bother me worse that the selfish idea that I spent so much time in that house working so hard. Julie was the first on the list of houses to move into the rebuilding process with our organization. She was going to work with contractors, pick out a floor plan and have her house rebuilt. And the process was going to be a fast-track plan so that she would be able to be in her house relatively quickly. And now, nothing.
From my understanding, Julie isn’t sure why it was torn down, and wasn’t aware that it was going to happen. With all the work that I had put into gutting it, she had put that X 10 in order to purchase it, design it the way she wanted, live there and maintain it. It’s selfish of me to be upset about the sweat that I put into it, but what I can’t imagine is working on something so diligently and then having it literally destroyed despite the progress towards something stable again.
My heart goes out to Julie, and all of the other residents of Orleans and surrounding parishes (counties) because I might be assured to say that this isn’t the first time this has happened, and won’t honestly be the last. I get discouraged when I study for a test for three hours, take it, and find out that I didn’t do as well as I had wanted. That is nothing in comparison.
I know that I am powerless as I sit here in the comforts of my own home and agonize over the ache that she must be feeling right now. There is something disabling about not having a safe place to call home, a space to be all your own and the knowledge that work you have done has been undone. But Julie doesn’t see it that way. Neither do most of the residents down there. It’s amazing. Their resolve and passion to stay and rebuild. It seems as though when that house was being demolished, I would have lost my heart along with it. But somehow she will undoubtedly find the strength to hold on to her heart, and find a new home.
October 20, 2006
I received a phone call yesterday from the director of the non-profit that I worked for all summer bearing some news that has been burdening me ever since. She called and shared with me that one of the house that we gutted had been torn down. Now, those words are so simple, all eleven of them. But it’s what has transpired within those words that ached last night.
The house that we worked on (gutted) belonged to a woman named Julie. Julie is a single mother of three children; she works at a local casino and is a homeowner. The house was a two bedroom ranch style with blue siding, with a carport/shed thing beside it. Now, when I say gutted, I mean that we went into the house for at least 7 days and worked from about 7am until between noon and 2 depending on the heat of the day. And we were decked out from head to toe in gear to protect us from the lead, asbestos and 3 types of mold that had been growing since Katrina-almost a year prior. Ty-vek suits, goggles, steel-toed boots, latex gloves, work gloves, ear-plugs, a hard hat and a respirator mask-that’s what we wore every single day. I can’t be sure of the temperature inside of the Ty-vek suits when we were inside the houses, but what I do know is that within about 30 minutes the clothes worn beneath were soaked. Yeah, like ‘I’ve just crawled out of a pool’ soaked.
The thing is, is that’s not what bothers me the most. We gutted about 11 houses while I was in New Orleans (I think). There are a few things that bother me worse that the selfish idea that I spent so much time in that house working so hard. Julie was the first on the list of houses to move into the rebuilding process with our organization. She was going to work with contractors, pick out a floor plan and have her house rebuilt. And the process was going to be a fast-track plan so that she would be able to be in her house relatively quickly. And now, nothing.
From my understanding, Julie isn’t sure why it was torn down, and wasn’t aware that it was going to happen. With all the work that I had put into gutting it, she had put that X 10 in order to purchase it, design it the way she wanted, live there and maintain it. It’s selfish of me to be upset about the sweat that I put into it, but what I can’t imagine is working on something so diligently and then having it literally destroyed despite the progress towards something stable again.
My heart goes out to Julie, and all of the other residents of Orleans and surrounding parishes (counties) because I might be assured to say that this isn’t the first time this has happened, and won’t honestly be the last. I get discouraged when I study for a test for three hours, take it, and find out that I didn’t do as well as I had wanted. That is nothing in comparison.
I know that I am powerless as I sit here in the comforts of my own home and agonize over the ache that she must be feeling right now. There is something disabling about not having a safe place to call home, a space to be all your own and the knowledge that work you have done has been undone. But Julie doesn’t see it that way. Neither do most of the residents down there. It’s amazing. Their resolve and passion to stay and rebuild. It seems as though when that house was being demolished, I would have lost my heart along with it. But somehow she will undoubtedly find the strength to hold on to her heart, and find a new home.
posted by kelli at 12:57 PM
