There have only been two times I have every seen my dad cry. Where you\'re a young girl your dad is the bravest person you know, and I never thought that I would one day see my dad cry, let alone two times in a two week period. The Saturday before the storm hit all of my family, with the exception of my dad, left for Tennessee for a \"hurrication\", that\'s what my family calls a hurricane evacuation vacation. My dad stayed because he \"waited his whole life to ride out a category 5 hurricane. \" So, the rest of my family left my dad behind. The storm hit, and all my family could do was watch the devastation on the news. We couldn\'t get through to my dad on his cell, but I got to him on our house phone. That was the first time I ever heard my dad cry. He told me that he took a walk around the neighborhood to see how people were doing, and when he got close to the grocery store he saw an elderly woman being beaten to death for a 6-pack of kiddie water. He was so upset that he couldn\'t do anything for her because he was just one man and the mob was about 8 men. He also told me not to tell my mom that he was scared because he would never hear the end of it. I just laughed then because that was so true. We left Tennessee and met up with my dad in Shreveport. My mom is a state nurse, so if we were forced to stay there she could get a job. plus my moms best friend from her childhood lives there. We stayed there for about two weeks, and my parents decided to enroll us in a public school. Huge mistake. My sisters and I had never been in a public school our entire lives. We were so out of place; my youngest sister told my mom she was dropping out of school forever if she made us go back. My mom let us stay home from then on because we walked into my dad on the phone crying. The second time I witnessed my dad crying. My uncle called because he had stopped at our camp on Lake Catherine. This camp has been in our family for 4 generations, and my dad helped my grandpa and my great-grandpa rebuild it after Hurricane Betsy. He said it was like them both dying all over again, because all the memories that he had in that building were gone. Seeing my dad so upset was one of those moments that I will never forget about it, but witnessing him cry wasn\'t at all him not being brave. Seeing my dad cry made him more brave to me. It takes a great man to show his emotions when he really means them.

Citation

“[Untitled],” Hurricane Digital Memory Bank, accessed March 29, 2024, https://hurricanearchive.org/items/show/42960.

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