A Hurricane Roils in My Heart

Because 2021 is determined to outdo 2020, even hurricanes are joining the lineup. While nobody can outdo De Santis for COVID-19 negligence (although many are trying), Ida was on the path to beat, or at least match, the impact of Katrina. I pray that as the damage is assessed in the weeks and months to come that history will show it failed, but due to global warming, I have low expectations. So far, it seems that while the Cat-4 was indeed devastating on many levels, we’ve not yet seen the cluster that we did with Katrina. Thank goodness.

As I try to focus my energy on sending out positive vibes, my mind returns to Katrina, sixteen years ago, and the stories most never heard. The stories of those who never made the news, who quietly moved on with their lives because they had no choice to do otherwise. Those uprooted who weren’t in the headlines, just on another list of displaced people seeking refuge and shelter from the storm.

One of these such stories is that of my friend Flora. We’d met in Albania in 2002 when I was working as a public health consultant on HIV counseling and testing. She and Albina, another colleague, were two of the many Albanian women I was lucky enough to work with and we became fast friends. They saved my soul at the time, but that is another story.

Soon after my time in Albania, I moved to New York for a new job, and Flora was awarded a full scholarship to attend the prestigious Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine to earn her Masters in Public Health, or MPH. Tulane is located in New Orleans and Flora’s scholarship was awarded in 2004.

If you think you know where this is going, hold tight.

As Katrina approached in 2005, like so many others, Flora was told to evacuate. In this, her story is not so different than far too many others. Indeed, in many ways, her story is much better than far too many others because she was, fortunately, evacuated, a luxury many can not afford. Through her scholarship program–Fulbright or maybe Rhodes, to be honest, I’ve forgotten–people were looking out for her since they knew she had no family here and was on a student visa on their dime. She was so fortunate to be on their radar.

She packed up her few belongings and fled, along with other students and faculty and staff at Tulane. The lucky ones. In a matter of hours, Flora found herself on a plane to New York City to stay with people she’d never met. Flora held it together, having already faced many obstacles in life, and was grateful to have been spared the direct wrath of Katrina. Then, like many of us, she watched from a safe distance as the strength of the storm coupled with the ineptitude of the G.W. Bush administration destroyed community after community. New Orleans would never be the same, nor would Flora.

And there, her story ceases to align with the thousands upon thousands of other survivors of Katrina.

Before Katrina hit, during her first months in Louisiana, Flora was diagnosed with advanced breast cancer and had undergone surgeries, radiation, and chemo therapy. As a student at Tulane, she was able to access excellent health care. But she did so alone. She kept the information quiet, it seemed. Certainly those closest to her knew of her plight, but I did not. I’d heard bits and pieces, but hadn’t grasped the severity of her deteriorating health.

Once she arrived in New York, I went to see Flora. I’d always remembered Flora like a sunflower, as she brought beauty and light to any room she entered. When she smiled, the sun shone that much brighter. On that day, as always, Flora was smiling. Until she wasn’t. Her hair had just started to grow back post-chemo, she was gaunt, her skin sallow. She seemed to have aged decades rather than the few short years since I’d seen her. We hugged and sat on the sofa where she was staying and chatted…until her tears finally fell.

Certainly the lives of other women with breast were disrupted by Katrina. As were, undoubtedly, countless others with other cancers or life-threatening diseases. Flora was just the only one I knew personally.

Flora grieved her health and repeated the question of why was this happening to her? She was just 37 years old. She grieved the children and spouse she was sure she’d never have. She grieved the chance to go through her battle with cancer with family on hand for if she’d have returned to Albania, she likely would not have survived to even see Katrina. And now she grieved her opportunities to study, so graciously afforded to her through her scholarship. What would happen? Would she ever even return to New Orleans? Like so many, her future had been tossed up in the air and should couldn’t know where it would land.

But, as she had with challenges before, Flora keep going. She resumed studies from a distance, taking some classes instead at Columbia or other New York based institutions, and eventually she graduated with her MPH.

Through her ties to Tulane, she was able to keep her insurance and was enrolled into cancer care through Sloan-Kettering and, ultimately, again received excellent care. She stayed with me for a while, here and there, and it was wonderful to see the glints of her luminosity reemerge. Following her double-mastectomy, she recuperated in my guest room, my cats looking after her with cuddles. She ate soup, then soup and crackers, and eventually full meals and regained her strength.

By the time Flora returned to Albania, I realized that the brilliance that shone through her smile was not sunlight but rather a fire within. A blaze that kept her ever moving forward. She allowed herself to grieve, but then got up and faced the next obstacle as she had so many times before.

Her cancer went into remission and her career in public health flourished. She landed a job with the United Nations Population Fund, also known as UNFPA, and was thriving. Until she wasn’t.

In 2013, Flora succumbed to breast cancer. But each of us who knew her carry a flicker of her fight, her fire, as we battle our own obstacles. I hope that Flora’s fire can help those dealing with the aftermath of Ida–and all of the other things on the unbearably long stinking list of shit going on in the world–to face another day. My soul aches for the world. I miss Flora. A hurricane roils in my heart. And if one roils in yours, please know, you are not alone.