In these past few weeks our generation has experienced something unique to us, namely Katrina and Rita. Being here in Dallas has really forced me to go beyond my comfort of apathy that I was so willing to experience back in Virginia. No, this is happening here, all around me, affecting the people I've grown to love and filtering into the city I temporarily call "home."
Although all of the different things involved in these two cataclysimc storms has brought tears to my eyes at different times, one thing sticks vividly in my mind like nothing else. Last week, while people were rushing to leave their homes in fear that they would undergo the same trauma as those in New Orleans, a bus carrying 40+ elderly people departed from a nursing home in Houston to bring the residents to safety. While the bus sat in traffic not even 20 miles from Dallas, which was its destination, it caught fire. Immediately the staff and driver started getting people off the bus, but it wasn't long before they heard an explosion: the oxygen tanks, the breathing tanks, started exploding. Before anyone knew what was happening, the bus was englufed in flames along with the 23 passengers who were still on board. There was no hope for rescue.
During some interviews with rescued passengers and with a nurse on the scene, there were heartbreaking stories told of people who would never recover from what they had seen, from knowing that the person who was sitting next to them didn't make it, from the realization that they were helped off the bus first. Among these stories was an old man on a stretcher who pulled off his oxygen mask as they were loading him onto an ambulance. He wanted to tell the rescuers "thank you" for saving him from the bus which he described as a roman candle. He went on to say, "they carried my like an infant to safety." The nurse, who was sitting in traffic a few cars behind the bus and rushed to help when she saw what was happening, told a story of a man who she was helping right after the explosion. He said, "I need you to help me find my wife. She was sitting right next to me. I need you to help me find Aida." The nurse said, "I told the staff person I needed to find Aida, and she just shook her head."
"Finding Aida"
Could you help me please?
I let her hand go
They carried me away
Have you seen my bride?
She needs me now
She cries on this kind of day
Fighting myself, I live myself
I die, I bring it all back again
My fears won’t fall
While she cries to sleep
I leave my world, my mind
Only to find her hand
I need you to see
If she still wants to dance
I can wait ‘til the next song
Ask if she’ll forgive
My clumsy hands
That forgot to hold on
Fighting myself, I live myself
I die, I bring it all back again
My fears won’t fall
While she cries to sleep
I leave my world, my mind
Only to find her hand
Bring me my darling
I’m feeling too weak
To call her name
When I let her go
I didn’t know to see
Her for the last time
Fighting myself, I live myself
I die, I bring it all back again
My fears won’t fall
While she cries to sleep
I leave my world, my mind
Only to find her hand
I watch the candle
Holding my joy
Like my arms held her
Bring me my darling
Let me see my bride
I can’t go on
with this ghost in my side
