Today I was driving down Elysian Fields Avenue in New Orleans looking for a place to buy a snack. (I don't know why I went that way, I know that hardly anything is open in that area of town, but I was hungry and that is where I was.)

The last time I went that way all of the dead trees were still in the neutral ground. (most of you would call that the median) Today the grand old, dead, magnolias were gone. They had been cut down along with all of the grand oak trees that died in the flood.

And in their place have been planted new young magnolia trees and new young oaks. Not baby trees, but instead tree youths.

Suddenly, I found myself crying in my car....again....

Eighteen months have passed since the storm and the flood. I thought the days of uncontrolled tears as I drove were over but today the sight of newly planted, living, young trees made me cry again.