We were renting a townhouse across the street from the 17th Street Canal before Katrina. Our children were 8 and 3 years old. We evacuated well before the storm, and although we explained to them what had happened to New Orleans, we did not expose our young children to much news coverage of the awful flood. \r\n\r\nWhen we returned in January 2006, our 9-year-old said she wasn\'t sure she wanted to see the condition of our old house, so we never took the kids there. More than a year later, in spring 2007, they finally expressed an interest. In July 2007, I got a chance to take our older child, now 10, to the house.\r\n\r\nIt had been gutted long before, and I had walked through the remains in 2006, when there were no doors on the building. Now there were doors in place again, but we peered through the window and patio doors. To my relief, my daughter found the experience curious, rather than distressing. On the patio, we found a piece of an old wooden toy that we recognized, but even that did not upset her, thank goodness.\r\n\r\nOn the grass next to the street lay some debris that had been removed recently. We chose a few chunks of black marble from the upstairs bathrooms and said goodbye.