Miss May and Hound

*Names have been changed to protect the people in the story



We got to Biloxi Mississippi about a year after Hurricane Katrina hit.  It was absurd, stunning and mind blowing how much damage and wreckage still existed after a year.  We were a youth group mission group of about 75 high schoolers and junior high students packed onto two charter buses.  And at first we were excited and eager to be going somewhere until we saw how much devastation there still was, and then we were ready to help and heart broken for the people in need that we saw.


Our group was assigned to work on the finishing touches of a house that was being rebuilt for one Miss May.  An older black woman in her late 60's, she lived with a gentleman name Hound in his early 30's.  Hound had found Miss May shortly after Hurricane Katrina, and she took him in in exchange for protection.  It was a symbiotic relationship like Mother and son, and their love for each other was obvious to anyone.

With all of the looting, Hound had saved Miss May's life on several occasions, fighting off, barehanded, people who had come to take what was left of Miss May's, then destroyed, home.  They would seek out food and other assistance together, and he would help her carry it home.

The house was almost complete, and we were determined to be the team to do all of the finishing touches. Paint. Trim. Molding. Doors. Locks. Windows. And moving in. We had two weeks to complete.  During this time Miss May and Hound took what they were able to earn and spent it on us.  They would treat us to home cooked meals, and we all tried Popeye's for the first time.

The day before the two weeks were up, we did it!  We finished Miss May's house and had moved all of their belongings in.  Hound now had his own mini apartment within the house, with a private bedroom, bathroom, and kitchenette.  They were thrilled, and no two people had ever been as gracious or generous when receiving a gift.  The last day, we opted to go back to Miss May's house.  Let's face it, we were proud of our work.  Miss May and Hound threw us a barbeque, complete with chicken and burgers on the grill, with corn on the cob and fried okra.  Hound had built a makeshift open fire grill in the back yard and we all sat around singing, talking, laughing and loving each other.

Were we going to miss them.

We filmed a documentary while in Biloxi.  Anyone who watches it can see the unconditional love between Miss May and Hound.

Two weeks after we returned home we received a phone call from the Biloxi Police Department at our church.  Miss May had been  brutally murdered, and Hound was missing.  The house had been ransacked and destroyed, windows shattered, the kitchen destroyed, appliances missing, as well as all of Miss May and Hounds belongings.  The BPD were searching for Hound as a suspect and wanted to speak with each of us who had worked on the project.  Since most of us were minors, not many were legally forced to depose over the phone.  But I swore, on the record, that Hound did not do this.  No two people had ever found each other in a time of need and formed a love so pure and innocent to survive together.  Of all the other's interviewed for our documentary, no one had come out as joyful as these two for having found a family from tragedy.

Hound's body was found a month later.  The police determined that looters had come, murdered Miss May and later Hound.  These two people who had shown us so much love, when we had thought that was what we were there for, had taught us an invaluable lesson, but didn't even get to enjoy the gifts we had to share.  I will live with their memory for the rest of my life, and I pray that they found love, peace, and each other in heaven.