New Orleans, the land of dreams! At least that’s the way I remember it. Mardi Gras, “Hey Mista, throw me something!” jazz, jambalaya, crawfish pie and filé gumbo. The blend of spices that delights the palate, shrimp creole, crawfish étouffée, gumbo, red beans and rice, trout amandine, and oysters Rockefeller. The clop-clop of horse drawn carriages, their vendors hawking, in mellifluous cadences, fresh produce: watermelons, snap beans, pecans, Creole tomatoes, okra and the local squash, cushaw. Images of the French Quarter: Café du Monde, Jackson Square, steamboats and barges along the mighty crest of the Mississippi. Tap dancers on Bourbon Street, strip club hucksters enticing passersby with door peeps of scantily clad and nude women and female impersonators. New Orleans at its finest decadence, yet a stark contrast to strong traditions of family values, deeply rooted in Catholic rituals - Lenten observances, Saturday confession, Sunday High Mass, the Feast of All Saints, the day New Orleanians remember their beloved dead by whitewashing tombstones and placing freshly cut flowers on gravesites. Ah yes, it’s America’s most exotic city – European and Caribbean. Neighborhoods with singular colorful accents. It’s where all of us are cousins. Hey, cousin! (French accent), or What’s happenin’ cuz? European, American, African and Native American. It’s a gumbo, not a salad bowl, where miscegenation and the art of plaçage (European gentry establishing dual households with free women of color) created an ethnic and cultural mosaic unique in the New World. The wrought iron craftsmanship of the Spanish mingled with French architectural styles, majestic plantations amidst equally majestic live oaks, the Creole cottages of Esplannade Street and the old town of Carrollton. The streetcar rolling jerkily along St. Charles Avenue through the Garden District. That’s the New Orleans of my childhood and youth. A New Orleans evocatively pictorialized in the fiction of Tennessee Williams, Walker Percy, Kate Chopin and John Kennedy O’Toole.

But what has become of my native city? Will I ever experience it in the same way? The New Orleans of hot and sultry jazz, the city of Jelly Roll, Louis, Bunk and Wynton? A rum hurricane drink from Pat O’Brien’s now takes on a new and eerie meaning. Etched in my heart and soul are nostalgic images of New Orleans. N’Awlins, as the locals say, is no more. I, like many Americans and citizens across the globe, stare in disbelief, mesmerized by the horrific and unimaginable images of a city swallowed by its tributaries, bayous, rivers and the grand ole Lake Pontchartrain. I wish these were Hollywood images that would evaporate the moment I step out of the theater. But no, the devastation is real. Hidden behind the voices of gratitude by family members with whom I’ve been able to speak lurk uncertainty about the future. The loss of property and memorabilia, a sense of hopelessness, thoughts of the long struggle ahead to rebuild shattered lives weigh heavily as I listen, helplessly wanting to reach out and embrace a loved one, hoping somehow to erase the pain. But my pain, and their pain, finds solace and hope in my mother’s unshaken trust in God’s infinite goodness. In one of my conversations with her, she no longer feared for her home and earthly possessions. She is thankful that her life and those of her children and grandchildren have been spared. She is praying for those less fortunate.

So what will become of my city, the Big Easy? Will the good times roll again? America is a land of entrepreneurial prowess. The American people have demonstrated time and again their undaunted spirit in the face of catastrophe. American ingenuity and technology will rebuild the city. Katrina has opened the door for new and expansive reconstruction. It will be the American way, an opportunity that will create an economic boon in a city that heretofore had been one of America’s poorest, rife with crime and corruption, in spite of its charm and glitter. If that boon reaches all classes of society, then my New Orleans has the promise of a phoenix rising from its ashes. And when she does, will I know her, and will I love her as I loved her before, a city radiant in its joie de vivre? I hear the lamentation of an old classic Carnival tune, “Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans.” Sadly, I do.

This essay was originally broadcast on 88.1 WVPE.