This reflection is by Lisa Nikolai, a sophomore from Custer, Wis.
As Jason Greene said “find
one thing that stood out to you on this trip and remember it.”
For me that one thing would be the people that I met and their attitudes
toward what had happened to them. Everyone had an overwhelming sense of
gratitude and lots of hope. They all had a story to tell as well. Most of
the stories were of how they lost everything. A lot of people, like Ralph,
lost a loved one or friend. Ralph lost his wife due to disease after the
hurricane but he is still alive and doing well today. A person could tell by
talking to him that he wasn’t going to take things lying down. Even though
Hurricane Katrina completely gutted his house, destroyed his yard, and took
away his wife, he is unwilling to move away.
Another person who lost everything was Butch. He is living in a
nursing home because his house and everything in it was destroyed. I met
Butch when I was heading in after an outside Mass. He was just sitting there
in his wheelchair and I got a sense that he wanted to tell me something. The
first thing Butch said to me was “I really enjoyed your singing.” After
thanking him I asked him how he was doing and he told me about his house and
how he had just put up new curtains before the storm. He told me how much he
missed his house, but that he was glad that he made it through the storm and
that everything would be okay. I wished him the best and walked upstairs.
The most important lesson that I learned while in Biloxi was to keep my friends and family close to me. If you have friends and family you have everything you will ever need.
