Hurricane Katrina Fisherman's Relief Fund

Personal Stories From Those Affected

Burden of Destiny - by: Preston Tesvich

It's Thursday night. I'm in a huge, beautiful cathedral; the largest cathedral in New Orleans, and I'm getting my senior ring. Finally, after four years of going to Brother Martin High School, I'm the big man on campus. Things are looking great for me. I have a great year lined up: promising classes, great friends so close to me, and a promising date to the ring dance just two days later on Saturday night. Turns out, though, that instead of a ring dance I was attending, it was a hurricane evacuation. Saturday night at 10:00p.m.,driving the two hour drive to my grandfather's house that I would stay at for the next 5 days. All through that time, my family and I would watch with bated breath as this massive hurricane loomed closer to the place I called home. As fate would have it, the hurricane's path laid the eye literally right over my neighborhood, and, in a hurricane with 165 miles per hour wind, that's bad news. Days pass. No word from my hometown, just that rescuers were busy saving people from their ro oftops in New Orleans east. Was my house ok? Was my dad's boat ok? These questions kept my family and I awake at night, worried and anxious about our future. What were we going to do with our house gone? As time progressed, so did the news reports. Turns out that my school is underwater and the cathedral where I received my ring is ruined. Four years is a long time to a 17 year old, and I'm no exception. That school had my heart and soul in it. I had been 1st in my class the whole time I'd been there, and now I was nothing all over again. Still no word on the boat or the house. Still in anxious disbelief, I watch the tears stream down my mother's face as the prospect of our home's destruction creep into her thoughts; the house that she had been designing in her heart since she was a kid, and had finally gotten the chance to build. Her dream home. And my dad, watching the uncertainty in the face of a man who never shows it, dreaded the fact that his livelihood, his oyster fishing, was gone. My parents and I finally see a picture of our neighborhood days later when we relocate to Baton Rouge to live in my sister's apartment, along with her two roommates and the mother and boyfriend of one of the other roommates. Although the shot was from very high up, we could tell that the house got considerable water, probably no less than 10 feet. Later, we saw a picture of the boat, which, thankfully, was in good shape. But that didn't help issues at all. We were homeless and had no source of income. I watched from day to day as my parents beat their brains out over what they should do next, getting in countless fights with my sister and me and also each other. They decided to apply for unemployment to receive foodstamps. A family that had never asked for handouts, that never asked for or wanted a free ride of any kind, going from hardworking members of the community to jobless and poor in just a few days. I was trying my best to keep the eye on the ball: school. So, I made the decision, and, after considerable discussi on, convinced my parents that moving to San Diego and attending high school there while living with my aunt was my best option. So I found myself shortly after on a plane and in an environment as foreign to me as northern Russia. The next day I find myself in a high school I've never set foot in, with people I've never met, making me miss my friends; friends who've stuck with me through it all, who were now scattered to the four winds across the country. Soon after, my family was allowed to go back to our house, which was located in the hardest hit area. When my mom called beside herself with tears, I knew that it was bad. It didn't really hit me then. Not yet. Not until I saw the pictures. It was in shambles. I cried when I saw my mom's beloved piano, her frequently played engagement gift from my dad 25 years ago, on the other side of the house and practically broken in half, caked and discolored by the 2 feet of muck which covered every square inch of our home. I can hardly imagine the grief my mom felt when she walked through the muck that had replaced the floor and furniture. I cried when I looked at the walls that usually had pictures hanging on them only to find that the pictures were replaced by a brown discoloration, probably as a result of the mold already growing in the drywall. I cried for my home. Not my house. A house is replaceable. A house is physical. A home is a state of being. A place where one feels the most comfortable and the least threatened. A sanctuary where one can retreat from the world for awhile. That's what my family has lost. Even as I sit here in my aunt's house, I am homeless, and it will be a long time before I have a home again. I can only imagine what my dad feels. His occupation, oyster fishing, is one of extreme labor and 24/7 headaches. 16 hour days are not uncommon, and oysters are never far from his mind. He had worked for so long and so hard, and was just about to start the downhill process to retirement. Not anymore. Now he's forced to find another job. A 45 year ol d man who can't use a computer and who's been out of school for 25 years trying to find a job in today's world, where youngsters like me reign supreme in the job market. But it's not just about finding another job. Few people except those who experience it understand that it's not about him finding another job, it's about losing a part of his soul. The part of his soul that yearns for the water and yearns for the feel of his big captain's wheel; the part that lights up when he can show someone his boat, his livelihood, and say "yep, she's mine. Ain't she a beauty?" My grandfather certainly can't do that anymore. He's seventy-five years old and he's been working on the oyster boat since he was seven, part-time, and full-time since he was in seventh grade. We just recently got word that his boat, the Luka, named after my great-grandfather, is totally destroyed. My grandfather is a man of few words. His eyes say everything. I often look into his eyes and I can't ever get over how much wisdom I see in them. Th e life of hardship and pain lives on in memory in the eyes that broadcast knowledge of universal life lessons that few ever seem to learn. To see those eyes of a man who has more virtue and spirit than anyone I've ever known show any sort of pain, it's simply unbearable to me. To see the rest of my family struggling through this time makes me feel so helpless. I want to scream, but I know that won't help anything. I want to rant to someone, but I know that won't help anything either. I want to see my friends again. I want to lay in MY bed one last time. I want to have one more go at that piano that used to sit in the dining room of our house. I want to be able to wake up again in my room one last time, and walk downstairs to the sweet smell of my mom's cooking, in the house she designed, hearing my dad's voice, a voice that I've never heard swear not once in my life. I want to sit in my chair again in my room, and write music. Play my guitar. My keyboard. There's not much hope to be able to do any of these things ever again, at least not in the home that I remember. So where do I go from here? The only thing I can do is support my family emotionally and stay focused on my education. It's not enough. I want to do more. But I can't.

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