Katrina
Friday evening, September 3, the six o’clock news reported more volunteers were needed at the Astrodome; I clicked the remote, threw some things together, and drove the hour from my house to the dome – as I would do that night and the following two.
I expected crowds and difficulty parking and even pictured someone telling me that I was not needed once I arrived. That was not the case.
Walking up the east entrance ramp, for a second or two, I remembered my dad years ago taking my sister and me to see the Astros on bat night. She and I were so excited to have made it in time to get a baseball bat before they were all gone. This night would be different. I knew there was no game, no bats or balls, no cheering fans, just hurting people inside.
At the top of the ramp, a check point, the same place the attendant used to tear our tickets in half. A few steps across the familiar polished concrete floor and below me where once was a baseball field for the Astros or a football field for the Oilers, was instead the TV images I’d left in my living room an hour earlier. Green cots half-covered with white sheets filled the arena’s floor. And everywhere – people. I’d walked into the movie I’d been watching.
My heart went out to these people below. I felt sorry for them. But ultimately, feeling sorry for oneself or someone else does no good. Taking action does. And I was there to take whatever action I could.
After registering as a volunteer, I was told that volunteers were needed at Reliant Center to prepare for several incoming buses of evacuees. Once there, I went to work in the receiving and distribution area. I felt fortunate to be where I could meet evacuees face-toface and provide them with the first change of clothes they had had in days. I was also privileged to witness the thought and care those donating had put into their efforts. Like when a maroon suburban pulled up at the drop off point and a tall lady in a long brown dress exited the passenger side and quickly opened the other doors exposing many boxes and bags. Her urgent movements revealed her thoughts: She knew the situation was dire and she was meeting it head on. Yet in her resolve she maintained the gentleness and love she had put into each package, as I watched her tap the husky loading dock volunteer on the shoulder and point to one of the boxes he’d just stacked on the 10-foot long dolly. Gaining his attention, she bent down and gently patted the side of the box she referred to; she wanted him to know exactly what it contained.
Another angel of mercy in a car following the suburban handed her black trash bag directly to the exhausted, 5 o’clock-shadowed loading dock guy with the admonishment that everything it contained had been washed and folded. Moments later, like charcoal briquettes in a Barbeque pit, her black bag was added to the pile of several hundred others. Across Houston, across Texas and throughout the nation, the spirit of giving is alive and well and I was blessed to be part of it. I pray others will not miss this opportunity to volunteer, to give, to serve, to “love your neighbor as yourself.”
An evacuee who has forever touched my heart steadied herself against our makeshift distribution counter wearing only a nightgown and holding a small oxygen tank. Her speech was labored as she drew breaths of air through the light green tubing in her nose. She asked me for one of the bath towels she saw stacked behind me. I picked out a couple of towels for her and unknowingly picked up a folded shower curtain between the towels. Noticing the shower curtain, I set it aside; she asked what it was and then said she’d like to have it. I smiled and handed it to her; I asked what she was going to do with a shower curtain. She said, “I’ll need it for my new place.”
Hope . . . a city full.