Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado, click
here to update your pages on AuthorsDen.
Dear Family: Louisiana Writes One Final Letter From Mississippi... by Karen Lynn Vidra, The Texas Tornado
Friday, September 9, 2005
Rated "G" by the Author.
An exhausted Louisiana Sandusky is more than ready to come back home to Tennessee after spending a week at what was once Biloxi, Mississippi, helping out hurricane victims. She writes one last letter from the stormfront before getting her work finished and then packing to come back home to Tennessee.
Friday, September 9, 2005, 10:51 a.m., C.D.T., Biloxi, Mississippi~
Dearest Family~
I am more than ready to come back home to you guys; I miss you all so very much! It has been a week to be reckoned with here, and it has been a week that I will never forget as long as I shall live! Conditions are a LITTLE better here, but there is still so much to be done here, and it will be a very long time before all of this is but a very bad memory and all the debris/damage has been cleaned up and all the bodies have been found and recovered. There is still so much sadness here, and I have been doing so much crying it is a wonder I have any tears left inside of me.
The woman I was telling you about yesterday--Shaniqua Nakaya Williams--is still in a critical state, but she is still fading in/out of consciousness, and she is still burning with fever; she will probably be going on a helicopter back to Tennessee, where I will then continue to take care of her after she is settled in at Nashville Memorial. I feel it is my duty to take care of this woman; she has lost everything she has but the clothes on her back, and if she survives this, it will be a miracle! She "coded" two times while she was being evacuated to the shelter here, and she is still not doing that great. Her lungs are riddled with pneumonia, and she is still burning up with a raging fever; and she is suffering from infected cuts and has a (possible) broken arm. She is in a great deal of pain, and there isn't really anything we can do until we get her under the care of medical personnel at a hospital. Please be praying for Shaniqua; she really can use them now!
I wish I could have been there last night when you guys went karioke-ing (LOL spelling??); I know you guys always enjoy yourselves emmensely when you go singing! I would have loved to have seen Ronee' do her renditions of "Coal Miner's Daughter" and "You Ain't Woman Enough To Take My Man"; she always has had such sass and such spunk whenever she sang those songs, and the people are always delighted with her whenever she does them! She has always had that gift for song, and I know that she will be a country music superstar one of these days if she continues to sing! Did Johnny get up and sing? I know he is embarrassed to sing in front of people, but he still does a good job himself, and I know that he enjoyed it at one time! But I think that Johnny still sings quite well for the situation he is facing, and he is doing something that I can really never get comfortable with! Bill, I know you think I sing well, but I never thought I was never good at singing anything but Cajun lullabies to the kids! LOL (I guess that is why I have always sat behind the steel guitar whenever we were on stage! LOL) Did YOU sing?? I still think you have a sexy way of singing, and you always seem to drive the women crazy whenever you sing!! LOL We will have to do that again one of these days after I get back from Mississippi (that is, once I recover and catch up on lost sleep! LOL)!
I wrote to Kendra yesterday, but don't know if there is anything from her in my email in-box. I know she must be disappointed in me for cursing like I did in my last letter to her; I know I owe the cuss jar nearly 80 dollars for saying the "Big One"; but I was just so mad and so frustrated I couldn't help myself; it just slipped out, and I couldn't control it! My Cajun temper got the best of me, and I just let 'er rip! I have already prayed and repented, but still...that isn't like me to say "God d..." it; it's as though my body has been taken over by a complete stranger!!
How is the weather there? I am more than ready for cool weather: here it is unGODly hot, and with no power, it feels like I am in the pits of hell. I am ready for some HEAVEN now after spending a week here in hell, and I am ready for clean water, clean clothes, decent food, and especially a HOT SHOWER! I stink worse than the rotting filth that surrounds me, and I must smell as bad as the decomposing bodies by now! It is disGUSTing!!
Well, I will be signing off; have to finish my work, and then get to packing before my trip back. I will be flying back with Shaniqua and other hurricane victims that we are taking back with us to Tennessee; they are leaving Mississippi because of unsanitary conditions, and we feel that they deserve much better care elsewhere! It is not safe here, and it is getting more desperate all the time. I will call you when I get back to Nashville, and I will see you sometime tomorrow, probably in the evening. Again, I miss you all with all my heart and soul, and I can't WAIT to run into your arms and smother y'all with hugs and kisses!
Take care, dear family, and know I still love y'all with all my heart and soul! God bless y'all mightily, and see you sometime tomorrow!
((((((((((((((HUGS))))))))))) and much love, your (exhausted) wife (and mama), Louie May. :( >tears<
As always, you make it sooo real, Karen, and truly take us there and make us THINK of the living experience by mixing the horrific with the homely. Again, superhumanity resides within the characters you "let us into" - more fact than fiction, it seems to me, when I know that there ARE indeed these saints in the world who are able to give of themselves to the nth degree and not to count the personal cost. Bless you and thank you... go get that bath! LOL Kate xx
A poignant story about letting go of a narcissist in your life. Have you ever been attacked FULL force by a narcissist? It's the closest thing to being stabbed over and over in the back.
Friday, September 9, 2005, 10:51 a.m., C.D.T., Biloxi, Mississippi~
