On July 8, 2002, we lost our home in the flood. Not only my family, but my whole family lost their homes. Not one person was spared. None of us had anywhere to live or one thing that we could call our own. We were all split apart. All of my family had lived within seconds of each other, now we were in different towns, campers, apartments or trailers. But every one of us worked long hours, day after day, month after month, to try and recapture some sort of life.
It oddly seemed that my Mom worked not on our house, but on my grnadma's first, to get them back into their home. it had to be guttted from floor to ceiling. There was nothing but a frame. But help came to us from a church out of state. They completely rebuilt their house. And some way, some how there was a home. They got new beds, couches, tables, carpet, etc. The four days before Christmas they got to move back home. And as always our whole family gathered there Christmas Eve. There was no Christmas tree, or decorations outside, but inside this family was together, safe, alive and doing what we do best, love each other. We spent the whole Christmas Eve admiring the new house. Everything was new and different and it seemed a little weird, but just being at mamaw's and papaw's house made us forget, if only for a night, that the flood had even happened. This is the Christmas I'll always remember.
Ashley Steele, Sophomore Westside High.
