Life’s Necessities Grow Scarcer at the Superdome By Wil Haygood Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 3, 2005; Page A01

“A man walked up, wearing a T-shirt, work pants and moccasins. Raymond Williams had been a nomad for four days. ‘My wife’s got cancer,’ he said. ‘Throat cancer. And I got prostate cancer.’ He was accompanied by his wife, Leona, and 15 grandchildren. They were carrying their belongings in plastic bags. The Superdome was in the distance, like a painful mirage. ‘Both me and my wife are on medication. Leona, show him your neck.’

She pulled down a handkerchief that had been tied around her neck. The bandages that covered the incisions made from her throat cancer surgery were the color of river water. ‘We holding on through the grace of the Lord,’ Leona Williams said, in a pink blouse that somehow still looked very nice and pretty.

Every minute or so, Raymond Williams would twirl his neck, gathering his grandchildren close as possible, only to have them ease back out into the road, like figures on a bobbing raft.

Washington Post