The Christmas Angel

We found hope in a secondhand store

- TULLIA HAMILTON

CHRISTMAS WAS COMING, and while browsing a local secondhand store with my sister, Shelia, I thought about everything my family had to be grateful for in 2006. We had to stay positive.

We wouldn’t be in New Orleans this year. Our old neighborhood was still recovering from Hurricane Katrina. Luckily I had room in my home in St. Louis to take them all in.

My family had lived in New Orleans for generations, including the last 50 years in the Lower Ninth Ward. I hadn’t lived in the city since 1969, but I visited often and Christmas was still defined in my mind by the city’s traditions. On December 25 we made the rounds to our friends’ houses, enjoying a drink, tasting their gumbo, and feasting on mirliton, sweet potatoes and red velvet cake.