Life Happens To All Of Us!

Over the years, Jim and I have spent a lot of time in Biloxi, M-i-s-s-i-s-s-i-p-p-i (I just love
to spell that word--it reminds me when I was in grade school and learned to spell it for the first
time).
For years, we attended the furniture market at Tupelo, which was only a skip, hop and a jump (well, o.k.--a long skip, hop and a jump) from Biloxi. We fell in love with the region because
of the beautiful white sand beaches and the laid-back lifestyle of the people who lived there.
In later years, we found a campground just across the highway from the lovely Gulf waters
and that made it even more special. Then, on August 28, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico as a Category 5 storm, with winds estimated to be at 175 mph.
The winter after Katrina, we didn't even try to go to Biloxi, as we saw on TV stories about all
of the damage. We went to Gulf Shores, AL instead, but did drive over there one day. We were
in shock at what we saw. The beautiful old southern homes facing the Gulf were mostly gone.
The storm had actually rolled up part of the highway running along the Gulf. One of the
casinos, which had been setting on the water, was picked up and dumped right in the middle
of a street. Two bridges were demolished--one leading into Biloxi and one going into Bay St. Louis. For several days no one could even get to Bay St. Louis to check on the residents except
by boat.
Each year after the hurricane had hit, we would drive over to Biloxi to see the rebuilding
that was taking place, and to tell you the truth, it was maddeningly slow.
Then, in January, 2008, another catastrophe occurred in the area of Biloxi. Lam Luong,
a 37-year old father, confessed to throwing his 4 children 100 feet into the water under the Dauphin Island bridge. Searches continued for several days without any rescue or recovery of
the bodies of the children. Finally, all 4 bodies were found and laid to rest. Luong had had a
fight with his wife and wanted to punish her by throwing his children into the water.
A judge has upheld a jury's recommendation that Lam Luong be sentenced to death by lethal injection and an unusual edict was also handed down by the judge--that Luong must be shown pictures of his children every day for the rest of his life.
Biloxi is finally beginning serious rebuilding and you get a sense of renewed hope in the
residents. When Jim and I criticized the fact that the casinos were rebuilt rapidly, the people
from Biloxi pointed out that it was necessary to get the casinos up and running, in order to receive the much-needed revenue from them to help with the rebuilding process.
We spent two weeks in Biloxi before Christmas and will return early in February for a
month. We still have to really search to find where the campground was that we stayed in
for so many years, as it was completely destroyed. You can still see concrete
slabs where houses and businesses--and even whole shopping centers--had been located
and not rebuilt. And we don't pass the Dauphin Island exit without thinking of those four
beautiful children, and we realize that there in Mississippi, we can still feel the aftermath
of two catastrophes--one caused by Mother Nature and the other at the hands of a sick father.