Has it really been 5 years?

Tonight I don't have much energy to muster out "an ode to 5 year anniversary Katrina" post. I read back through my last year's post and felt I said much of what I wanted to say today. http://clanahanfam.blogspot.com/2009_08_01_archive.html

In many ways, it seems like a lifetime ago --- we've come so far. We've evacuated, we've been homeless, we've been temporarily relocated, and then permanently relocated to Houston. We've lost parents, we've faced incredible challenges, and now we have two blessed children. The number 5 can seem so small, so insignificant, but for us it represents an old chapter, a different life. We are fortunate to have lived it because on the other side of the destruction came immense blessings.

So farewell Katrina, we will always remember you. But we are letting you go now, closing the book on that chapter in our life. That past has brought us to our amazing present lives and will shape our future. But the storm will not have control over our future --- we move on. I pray for all of the other many, many, many families affected --- that they will soon be able to close the book on Katrina and continue writing the new chapters in their lives.