After the floodwaters receded, photographer Kristina Britt was looking for an empathetic way to document the incredible strength of families rebuilding their lives.
“I am used to taking happy, smiling images, so I immediately thought about a way to capture what was happening where people could smile instead of cry,” she says.
So she asked locals to share stories of salvaging sentimental items that were somehow spared by the water. Here, four individuals who lost everything share with Britt how they found some small good during some of the most difficult days of their lives.
COURTNEY BROWN
Photo by Kristina Britt.
“Twenty-eight years ago, I placed my newborn son Joshua with an adoption agency. My most prized possessions are his birth photos, birth certificate and letters and pictures from his mother. When the flood came, we had to evacuate suddenly in the wee hours of the morning. I grabbed clothes in a duffel bag and Joshua’s keepsakes. I realized after we left that a letter was missing, one that I wrote to him after his birth explaining why I chose to place him for adoption. Digging through the muck of the aftermath, I found a box of keepsakes still filled with water and floating photographs. In the middle of the box was the letter. It was soaked and matted together but able to be dried out and saved. While these keepsakes have brought me such peace these last 28 years, they are so much more than that. One day they will be a symbol to a son, who sees them and knows that since the moment he was created, he has been deeply loved, wanted and missed.”
Photo by Kristina Britt.Photo by Kristina Britt.
REBECCA NORTON
Photo by Kristina Britt.
“This time last year, I was back in Denham Springs to help care for my mom. She was in the hospital with nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, which led to cirrhosis of the liver. She fought hard and long but eventually passed away on Aug. 24, 2015. She was a wonderful mother. Thoughtful, easygoing and a rock. In February, I got engaged to my boyfriend of three years. The engagement and wedding planning have been bittersweet. I miss her and wish she was here to share this time. After the flood, my sister and I found her cedar chest with several items that were of importance to her. Everything was completely wet; all of our childhood things were covered in mud and floodwater. Tucked away in the original box in which she received it was a blue ceramic cameo pin I had given her in elementary school. My mom was a classroom mother and actually helped all the children make one of these cameos for their mothers. I know why I had picked blue for her—it was her favorite color. The cameo was in perfect condition. Even the card that it was pinned to managed to stay clean and dry. It was so clear that this should be my something blue when I get married. It was like she tucked it away so that I would find it years later. Without the flood, I can confidently say I would not have found it.”
Photo by Kristina Britt.Photo by Kristina Britt.
LACY KOSIENSKI
Photo by Kristina Britt.
“Our house flooded, and we are devastated about that. But we were in the process of moving out, so most of our furniture, pictures, decor, kids’ things, clothes and a huge collection of sports memorabilia were in a storage unit until we moved. About three days after the flood, we found out that our storage unit got five feet of water, and we lost everything in there. We were sick to our stomachs. I felt numb; I couldn’t breathe. All I could think of was my firstborn son Blitz, who was stillborn at 37.5 weeks. I had all of his things in that storage unit. We had things made with his handprints and footprints while we were in the hospital with him, things that can never be replaced. My husband went and got everything out of the storage unit once the water went down. Everything was just ruined. All of my antique furniture ruined. All of my pictures ruined. I cried and cried. We were going through box after box, and nothing could be salvaged. The smell was horrific, and everything was wet. I found the box that had Blitz’s things in it. It was completely dry. It had not been touched by the flood. It was a miracle. I have no idea why or how it made it through the flood, but it did. Even though I lost everything else, I still had these things to remind me of my son in heaven.”
Photo by Kristina Britt.
CHAD AND ALLISON SCHOONMAKER
Photo by Kristina Britt.
“When we left the house Saturday morning, the water was at our ankles. I had no idea it would go so high to damage some of my art hanging four feet high on our walls. When we were able to get back into our house four days later, several pieces still hung where we left them, water-damaged on the lower half. Some pieces were floating in the water. As I pulled them out, they were still bright and vibrant and full of life, each an example that there was and will be beauty in the ashes.”
Photo by Kristina Britt.Photo by Kristina Britt.
This story was originally published in the October issue of 225 Magazine.
