This reflection is by Bryan Lysinger, a freshman from Midland, Texas.
Waves gently flow across the sandy shores, the churning water harmonized by passing traffic. As the ocean tide rises and recesses with the fading twilight, memories scatter into shards more numerous than the reflections of the setting sun.
As we drove along
the Gulf shoreline, catching our first glimpses of the wreckage, a sudden
solemnity fell across all of us. We sat and stared at lots where eight-story
buildings once stood, now only a few feet of rubble. We gawked at broken
trees, scattered debris, and broken homes. We heard stories of bodies being
carried away by the water. We angrily drove past companies and casinos that
had already been rebuilt in grand fashion while families across the street
lived in tents and FEMA trailers, just hoping that they might get some help
in the near future. But despite everything that happened, a great and
tremendous sense of optimism was apparent in these peoples’ everyday lives.
In what seemed to be no time at all, the time to leave was upon us. After a
week of work, stories, frustration and fun, it was time to head home. But
before we did, we heard a man speak. His name, I believe, was Jason. He told
us of the panic and extreme disorder following the hurricane. His message to
all of us was not to go back and tell everyone how much help the people of
the Gulf Coast
needed, but to go back and share their stories, their lives. He asked us one
simple thing: to take with us one memory that we’ll remember forever.
I will always remember our drive along the coastline on that gray Monday
morning. We stopped along a part of the beach and everyone with us got out
of the cars to walk around and soak in everything around us. Before we got
back into the cars, Fr. Tom wanted a picture of everyone on the beach that
day. So we grouped together for the picture. But none of us felt it
appropriate to smile. We were in such awe that it felt so completely wrong
to smile with everything as it was around us. And yet, we were only there
for a week. We worked and talked with so many who woke up and lived in that
everyday. The one thing that I will hold in my heart always is that despite
everything, the people of Biloxi,
Miss., smiled for all of the
pictures they took with us, every single one.
