Katrina Connection received this humbling, poignant letter that epitomizes the ongoing struggles of displaced New Orleans residents and expatriates:

Since I was a child, I have always adored New Orleans. The older I got, the more it felt like it was where I was ‘meant to be.’ I was thrilled when I met the person I was to spend my life with, and that he shared that sentiment with me.

We were married in May of 2004, and began to plan our move, something we knew would take a while.

We paid our deposit, first and last months rent, and packed our things. Then Katrina hit, and the house we were planning to live in got 10 feet of water. Ever since we’ve been trying to find a way ‘home,’ and it’s been an extreme struggle since we had to sell many items in order to find a place to live. (We lost $3,000 on the house, as well as the cost of the truck rental, etc.) We’d already given notice, so we had to move, and had no choice in the matter.

My husband and I both had jobs lined up in NOLA, and as we weren’t there, lost those opportunities. We’ve had many struggles, health issues, financial… my husband now works in healthcare, and once again we are hoping to be able to relocate, to go home, to New Orleans. He already has 3 job offers, as the need is so great, and I want to work at whatever job I can find and do some serious volunteer work to rebuild that beautiful city.

Everyone who pays attention, who reads about it, or listens, knows the stories of so many of the survivors of the storm, who lived through it in New Orleans. But not many people are interested in the stories of those affected in other parts of the country, like my husband and myself. No one realizes the cost to people like us, who haven’t owned a car for years because we had to sell it to find a place to live, or had to sell our furniture. We are left with clothing and personal items. We were lucky–we could’ve lost everything, personal items included… but at the same time we are horribley unlucky, as no one cares about our story. No one is interested in helping us get to NOLA, no matter how much good we would do for the city. No one cares that we lost over $3,000 to a crooked landlord that refused to refund our money, or that we slept in our car for days before we could move into our new place, with 2 feet of snow on the ground outside.

And that’s crushing to me. It’s crushing to my soul, and my spirit. New Orleans is my home, no matter wether I grew up there or not. New Orleans is more than a city, it is a culture. It is the sound of a trumpet playing a jazz melody, or the sound of hoofs on old roads, or just neighbors getting together for food and companionship in a backyard. The city has a soul, and it’s in me… and no one cares about our loss.

I don’t know if this letter will fall on deaf ears. I don’t know if anyone will read this, or if everyone will read this and think that I’m being whiney. If I had the means, I’d have been in New Orleans, on a boat, with water, and food, pulling people off of roofs. I’d have done whatever I could have to help, but the storm hurt me as well.

But I pray that someone will read this, and understand. I pray that someone out there will think of me, and my husband, and others who were effected by the storm.

I pray that one day, the soul and the spirit of the city will return. That it’s culture, and the people who love it like my husband and myself, will one day be able to live again in the city that’s rythym matches that of their own heart.

I pray every day for those that are still struggling, and hope that they find peace and are able to start living again.

And I hope, beyond all odds, that one day I will be able to fall asleep every night in the city that has been my home since I was a child and first started dreaming of the smell of magnolias.

-Joyce Woodward