Now starts the hard time!

Today we went to Ottumwa to see off my brother and his daughter and family. They are now on the way back to New Orleans on a bus.

This really starts a little over two years ago. Katrina hits New Orleans and the Levy's brake and water starts flooding the 9th ward in New Orleans. My niece was living in the 9th ward at the time. My brother had went to stay with them during the storm, during which the high winds took part of their roof. They ended up having to walk out in waist high water. N'Kenge was only 5 years at the time, had only attended kindergarten a couple weeks. Jazmin was only 2 at the time. Georgia, my niece was 9 months pregnant at the time. had been having contractions for some time.

My brother helped Georgia get the girls out of the 9th ward to safety, walking through waist high water a couple blocks till they saw a deuce and half truck, which picked them up and got them to the stadium. Georgia continued to have contractions, and those in charge wanted to air vac her out, but they wouldn't allow her to take her daughters and dad with her, so she refused to be air vac out without them.

They ended up on a bus to Houston TX the next day.

We had no idea where they were at the time, and I listed information on different web sites about them.

It wasn't long till I had heard from my brother John in Houston that they were ok. They were not sure what they were going to do. At first they thought of staying in Houston and finding work, but they couldn't find anything or housing.

We talked and they decided to come to Iowa for a while, and with help found a house in Ottumwa they could live in for 6 months rent free. They only had to pay their own utilities and phones. At the end of the 6 months they had to find another house to rent as the owner of the first house didn't realize it was a mix race family and her boy friend was black.

Now I'm getting ahead of my self.

There was an organization that was helping people get relocated. They had asked them if they could get help, and on Saturday September 9th, they got a call asking them if they were interested in relocating. Then Monday came, Georgia was hoping to have the baby and then relocate, or at least have a couple days to get things together, but the organization told them, they had reservations on flights to Des Monies Iowa that afternoon, and they had to be at the airport by 4pm. They, all four of them, and yes, still pregnant Georgia arrived around midnight on Monday night September 11th at the Des Monies airport, where I was waiting to pick them up and take them back to Ottumwa where they would stay with my oldest son for a few days till the house was ready. Thursday they were suppose to get in the house, and Georgia was only interested in getting the house cleaned so it would be clean for the family to move into! I had come to town on Thursday to take her around to a couple appointments that morning, she still having contractions! After our last stop at an office that was going to help her with items for the baby and kids, I asked her if she had been to WIC to get it? She hadn't so we stopped there. The WIC lady asked Georgia if she had found a doctor yet, and Georgia said no. So they called around and found a doctor at the Ottumwa Clinic next to the Hospital that would see her, and they wanted her to come out that afternoon as soon as she could so they could examine her as she was having contractions! Now it was approx. 1:30pm at the time, and they asked if we could bring her right out we told them yes. So we were at the doctors office at aprox. 2:15pm and at 2:30 they decided to wheel her over to the hospital as the doctor was over there getting ready to deliver another baby, and he wanted to examine her.

Georgia's oldest daughter had already been enrolled in school, and it was almost time for her to get out, and someone needed to pick her up. I left everyone at the hospital thinking it would be a few hours if she had the baby at all that day, and went after N'Kenge, and them drove to Bloomfield to pick up our daughter Beth at the high school as she got out. The girls and I arrived back at the hospital about 4:15 pm and was told Georgia had the baby right after I had left.

Yes, Georgia was in my car at 2pm and by 3:31pm the baby was here! It was a boy! He was so cute. They spent a couple days in the hospital and then went home. Georgia named him after his grandfather, my brother(John William) .

We helped Georgia by taking him home with us just a day or so after she took him home, and watched him a few days a week from a week old, to allow her a chance to recouple and get things settled in the new home in Iowa after losing everything they had in New Orleans. We continued to watch him a few days a week to help them, until this week! He spent this past weekend with us for the last time. We took him home for the last time Wednesday afternoon.

So we had helped care for little John William from a week old to after his 2nd birthday. He is our Bud! And today we bid them farewell as he and his mother and sisters and grandpa boarded a bus in Ottumwa to relocate back to New Orleans! He had turned 2 this past September 15th! We will not only miss our family that we had grown use to having close to us in Ottumwa, but miss a little guy we have grown so close to over the past two years!

This was one of the hardest days in my life! There is a chance we may have him for part of the summer, so summer will not come fast enough! We are looking forward to June 2008! Till then our home feels a little more empty! Our lives feel a little more empty without Georgia and girls and my bother John just 30 minutes away from us! Now they are a world away from us!

Georgia had been working at the WalMart in Ottumwa, and going to Ottumwa and WalMart there will not be the same!

We already miss them and they just left us this morning!