I still can't believe how much time has passed since Katrina. Almost 5 years. Five years ago I was a college student dating a soldier living with her parents in Chalmette. Five years ago I wasn't a mother. Five years ago I still had my mother. Now I'm 28 years old, A wife, and A mother and I live in Virginia. It's just so surreal to me. Everything I have lost and gained over the past five years, and all because of a storm. A storm that destroyed and awakened me as a person. Katrina didn't just take away my possessions, she took away my way of life. I miss being able to visit any one of, if not all of, my family members in one day. Now I have to get on a 4 hour flight and drive all over Louisiana just to see my relatives. Some live in Mandeville, some live in Hammond, and some even moved back to Chalmette. It just hurts so much because I long for something that will never be again. I want Chalmette back from 2005. I want it badly, but all of the trips home to visit never paint a picture of what was, just a new picture of what may be. I have my hopes for the future of Chalmette. I hope to someday move back there and be comfortable with calling Chalmette home. Until then I have the empty cement slab of my childhood home on Lloyds Ave. to remind me of what was.

By- Monique Chimento