While Katrina proved to be devastating for many families and individuals, it proved to have a rather large silver lining for my family. Although we were evacuated for a month, first in Conroe,Tx at an aunt\'s house, then in Lafayette, La in a house we rented two doors down from my cousin, my family benefitted greatly from the situation. Now I know it sounds horrible to say we could benefit from something that gave so many people devestation on many levels, but it\'s true. The most important thing that happened to my family involves my grandma. We took her with us when we evacuated but she stayed when we left Texas so we could assess the damage before bringing her home. She has diabetes and needs to have access to health care at all times. When we learned her house had been basically destroyed due to the most of the roof flying off, my aunt took her to the doctor in Texas so that she could get refills for her medicines. There the doctors did a full checkup since they had no history on her and could not contact her doctors here. The docotor in Texas found two blockages in her heart that would have killed her within a month or two. my grandma had been to the doctor multiple times to have her heart checked within the last few years but the doctors here had never found the blockages. I believe that if my grandma had not had to stay in Texas for so long, she would have died by now. I thank god for tearing that roof off her house. Most of the sheetrock was moldy, the floors upstairs were sinking into the downstairs and most of the upstairs had a full sky view but remarkably, the pictures and keep sakes my grandma had hanging on the walls and placed around the house were untouched. We were able to save almost all of her most prized possesions, the mementos she looks over to remember her husband, mother, a brother and the countless others who have passed in her long, wonderful lifetime. Being as old as she is, she wanted to come home as soon as possible to be surrounded by familiar people and places. She has lived on the west bank all of her life and was begining to miss being home. Although her home was demolished she is optimistic, with the guidance of some of her daughters, my grandma is having a new house built to better suit her needs in a wheel chair. She is however already back, she is living next door to us in the house that we were able to buy due to Katrina. My lifelong neighbor bought her house brand new in 1950. She lived there with her husband and their three children. Since then the children have grown with families of their own and her husband has passed away. For the past few years she has lived by herself with visits from her family. During the storm a pecan tree in her backyard fell on her house. it also fell on the house on the other side of her and the car parked between them. When she returned with one of her daughters, they decided it was best for her to move in with her daughter. They offered to sell us the house. Of course we jumped on it. the house is next to my parents home,where we live in an addition in the back. The kids will get to stay close to their grandparents and i will get to raise my children in a wonderful neighborhood. for now though, my grandma lives there while her house is being built. it\'s nice to have her back close to us so we will wait to move into our home until she is in hers. so you see, it\'s true, god works in mysterious ways and sometimes when things seem they have falllen apart, everything just falls into place and the pieces fit perfectly.