Sitting and Waiting in Pensacola........

Since being here in Pensacola, we have found out that the Navy base has ordered all military personnel to evacuate today. Then the parish we live in has also called for mandatory evacuations starting today. Leaving yesterday seems to have been the best thing I could have done.

I am trying to be optimistic about all of this and even a bit cavalier with thoughts of, "so what if I lose everything?" I have insurance. I will go shopping and buy new furniture, a new piano, new clothes and etc. But what it boils down too, is everything in that home was ours and there isn't anything I can do with what is about to happen. Four years ago, when Ivan hit Pensacola, I didn't care at all. I knew that these were just things and things can be replaced. People can't. I was going through my cancer treatments, and at that time, I had perfect clarity with what was truly important. I don't want to relive the cancer part of that, but I am trying very hard to focus on what is really important and just let what will happen......happen.

As I was leaving town yesterday, I was listening to the radio. They were broadcasting a memorial service for the 3 year anniversary of Katrina. During this service they laid to rest bodies of people that were unclaimed. They do not know who these people were. Unable to identify them and with no one coming forward to ID them, they put them in an unnamed tomb. "Victims of Katrina." That needs to be my clarity.

I am lucky. I know this. I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends. If my house is gone, I have somewhere to go. I have insurance. I have my family and we all have our health. My heart is breaking for the people who, as we saw with Katrina, do not have a place to go. Many of them do not have insurance. Many more do not have money. They said in the article to prepare as if there will not be anything left. Isn't that a great thought?

I don't mean to be a downer, I guess when it comes to things like this, it just more than bothers me, it makes my heart really hurt. I know we are going to read and hear stories that will make us cry, and we will see devastation that will be hard to comprehend.

So I sit here and I write this blog with Monster Gustav looming out there in the gulf. All I can do now is wait and pray that we have learned from Katrina and that people will leave the area.

Three days til landfall...........