Words for the lost; words from the found

[Lancer]

The messages were so brief. Words of hope, cries of pain. Expressions of desperation, reassurance, frustration, comfort, confusion. Within hours of Hurricane Katrina's retreat from the Gulf Coast, the internet began humming with words for the lost and words from the found:

Heather Boudreaux??? Colin Lemoine??
did surge get to 52nd Street in Gulfport
Deborah,it’s your stepsister in Calif
MY PARENTS WERE KILLED
Lost dog in Timber Ridge, Pass Christian
Ma...sua familia Ok Brasil. Como ajudo?
Dad, our home is available
You safe? Call Anelise
Looking for old friends
I am Uncle Bob’s niece do you need help
Call Mom collect in Nevada
Please call
Please call
Please call
Please call
We can come get you house you help in anyway we can you can come live with us
Still waiting for NASA to post list
sherri -- sherri baby -- Ida
When to return?
Astrodome zip code?
St. Stanislaus still there?
found and fine -- Ruby
NASA list up yet?
Is there any way to locate a missing child?
Help for rescuing horses
Ocean Springs -- I made contact
I can make calls for you
Prayer to St. Raphael Angel of Healing and Happy Meetings
Melissa -- were you there? did you make it out?
Nuns trapped in convent in N.O.?????
Reggae artist ,Soul Avenger, Ben Hunter
Ti`m gia ddi`nh o^ng Nguye^~n Hie^~n (Nguyen Hien)
I have a list of 100s found
We’re looking for you Peggy!
Need a route out of NOLA NOW! (Esplanade Avenue and trying to get out
Needs to be RESCUED diabetic running out of meds
Will call anyone in India and Pakistan

"Safe" and "missing" lists cropped up first at local newspaper websites along the Gulf Coast. They are still active on news websites around the world. Those who read them with a vested interest in what became of a loved one did so with trepidation. There might be no news, or worst fears might be confirmed.

Those who read the lists merely out of curiosity may have felt as though they had stumbled upon a wake, or a long overdue family reunion. In an earlier time, such rituals were private; now their stage stretches across continents.

Regardless of one's reasons for clicking on the links, the messages began to sound like some ancient song, or dirge, or lament for the living—formed out of nothing more than primal calls of human voices, one to another. Some cries echoed in the dark; some found the ears that had been waiting through the terrible nights and days to hear the only words that mattered: "I'm OK."

Comfort and sorrow are meted in out in varying draughts from all over this tiny planet in these most elemental of words and phrases. Some suggest old slights, bitterness and rancor are all forgiven and forgotten. Others offer concrete hope to the displaced and to frantic family and friends.

Even before it became apparent that help—if it came—would be too late; even before it became known that many efforts to give aid were thwarted, the people of the Gulf Coast reached out to one another, and to their loved ones so far away. They gave and acted and comforted while their leaders stood immobile.

Think of the friends who say, "we will house you/do anything we can/you can come live with us." Think of the person who says, "I will call anyone, anywhere." What of the reminder that St. Raphael, angel of healing, prays for happy meetings? Surely he prays that the healing and reunions will come in this earthly life, even in a battered nation so desperately bound by sorrow now, but just as eagerly awaiting the day when it will make itself whole once more.

©Elizabeth C. Jones 9/4/05 rev. 9/18/05

[opihimoimoi]

1. There should be one data based bank from the Red Cross/Fema

with a known phone number/computer access web site/ for the entire situation allowing peeps to look for and to ask for info....

Instead we got 86879080 differing ways to look for the missing..more confusion, lost time...who the fuck is in charge here?