A Video Tribute to the Victims of Hurricane Katrina

I put together the video you will find below this commentary following the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, the most destructive hurricane to ever strike the Gulf Coast. It includes news footage at the beginning, assembled by another individual who created a pretty amazing tribute video to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I can't find the original of that video, so I am unable to properly give credit to its talented creator. The rest of the video consists of still pictures shown against the audio backdrop of a ballad that I wrote entitled "She Was Somebody's Baby." At the end of the ballad is an amazing video with Celine Dion, singing a most moving rendition of "Ave Maria."

As I watched the coverage of Hurricane Katrina, I was taken back by the matter-0f-fact manner in which the media covered stories about the victims--and we, the general public--including me, responded to those stories. For instance, scenes like the following played out in my household and I'm pretty sure the scene was replicated in millions of other households:

My family and I are sitting around the table, eating dinner when a newscaster's voice catches our attention. "The body of an eight-year-old, Black female was found, floating down Church Street, face down this morning," to which I respond, "That's so sad. Please pass the salt."

It's not that I intended to be insensitive, but I didn't know the little girl and New Orleans (and Katrina's devastation) were 1500 miles away from my kitchen table in Draper, Utah. Our defense mechanisms prevent us from shouldering the burdens of the world, a weight no mortal could bear. So on an emotional scale of 1 to 10, we relegate the emotion we feel toward others' tragedies to a 2 or 3, saving the 9's and 10's for the Katrinas that impact us personally. Sometimes, however, I think we need to crank up our emotional reactions to the tragedies of others.

Thus, I shaped my tribute to the victims of Hurricane Katrina in the imagery of a ballad, eulogizing a single victim: A beautiful, Black child from the French Quarter in New Orleans, for whom the Preacher said during her funeral, "It was her time to go," but then again, there might be things the Preacher doesn't know. And what neither you nor I nor the Preacher may know became the subject matter of the ballad, starting with the most important fact: "She was somebody's little baby, somebody's little girl--she was SOMEBODY in somebody's world." And once she laid her fear aside, as the ballad suggests, her final thoughts may well have drifted to the Cajun lullaby, "When the levee breaks, take me in your arms. When the levee breaks, shelter me from harm."

I think it's important to connect emotionally to victims of misfortune, because, in so doing, we demonstrate our humanity and gain strength from empathy--strength that we will need to call on during the twists of fate that transform us into victims, as fate surely will do, more than once, during the course of our lives.

The photos, by the way, most of which came from the Internet, bring out the personal tragedy of Katrina at least as poignantly if not more so than the lyrics and and melody of my ballad--they are truly amazing photos! You need to see them. Really. And leave a comment if you wouldn't mind.

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