We took a left down St. Claude Avenue and crossed into the Lower 9th Ward section of New Orleans. I pressed my face against the window, I didn’t want to miss a thing. We passed a boat in the middle of the road. A boat I tell you. The roads were in all but non existent and barely accessible. We pulled up to a house with a roof and floor and a few vertical 2×4’s holding it all together. Directly across the street an elderly man sat on his porch watching us in curiosity. His home was leaning a bit to left and all the windows were boarded over with weathered plywood. A faint line ran across the top, just under the awning. I knew right away that is was a waterline where  5 years ago the flood had risen up to that point, 14 or 15 feet high. He nodded in our direction. I raised my hand in a pathetic wave and forced a smile. I felt bad for him. I wanted to give him a glass of sweet iced tee. Or better yet an air conditioner.
“You see those markings in the bottom right corner of the homes?” Charlie asked as I surveyed the road we were on where the weeds and grass was as high as the deserted homes themselves.
I strained to see what he was speaking of and then I saw it. An X with faint numbers both above and below. “Yeah, I see them” I responded. I hadn’t noticed them before but now that Charlie had pointed them out they began to stick out like fat kid in gym class.
“Those markings were left by rescue workers following the hurricane. It was a system to keep the homes from being searched repeatedly.” He continued. “When they left a house they would mark the bottom right corner with an X. The top numbers are the date it was searched. The bottom number…” Charlie paused for a moment. I leaned in hanging on his every word. “Well, the bottom number represents the number of bodies that were discovered there…” He let the words trail off just a bit but they hit me square in the chest no less. I leaned back and pondered everything I just heard. As I gazed out the left window, all of a sudden the markings took on a whole new meaning. Some homes had 0’s thankfully. But it seemed more often than not there was a 1 or 2. One home had a 4 and when I saw it I felt the air being sucked from my lungs. I just couldn’t take it all in. The impact was significant.
Andrea turned to me. “We love this city. New Orleans is our home. And when Katrina hit, it stole a piece of everyone who lived here. It was like a ghost town.” She turned to Charlie and placed her hand on the back of his neck. “But we both stayed. We did okay.”
The impact of this particular engagement session became blinding in nature. It was more than just a picture. It was a declaration of life. Of love.
You see, when I was a firefighter I did a summer of  volunteering with the forestry service. The fires had long been extinguished but our objective was to  help the forests begin again. We would tear down dead trees and gather brush into piles allowing the ground to breathe and soak up the sunlight. But more importantly we planted seedlings. At first it was odd seeing the tiny green shrubs surrounded by acres and acres of a charred, black wasteland. Odd, but overwhelmingly beautiful. A sign of hope. A new start.
This was kind of like that. Charlie and Andrea were a tree, planting themselves in a place that represented a time of sorrow and sadness bringing with them a joyful and thankful heart. Thankful for not only surviving the hurricane but to live to meet the other.
The old man watched us as we unloaded the car. ” These two are engaged” I explained. “We’re going to take some picture in that house across the street.”
“Oh? That would be mighty nice.” he said breaking into a toothless grin.
I liked him immediately. He was glad we were there and he welcomed us into his neighborhood leaving us with no doubt that we were free to plant as many trees as we like…