On Things Lost

I may not know all the details about the history of the LeBeau plantation. Sure, it was an antebellum plantation home turned hotel turned abandoned historic monument. But I don't know who the owners were at any given time or why it fell into utter disrepair. Not that the full history of it isn't important, and not that I haven't read up on it a little. It's just that LeBeau and I, we sort of have our own history.

Photo I took on my last visit to LeBeau

When I was a teenager, my best friend and I would go to a local diner and buy cheese sticks to-go then take them into the alley between LeBeau mansion and a bingo hall and park. And sit. And munch cheese sticks. And spook each other with, "Hey! Did you see that?? Up there in the tower!" And laughter and jokes and silliness ran rampant. We absolutely loved that house. We loved that we had access to something so historically significant and felt a real connection to it. It was ours. We knew people had broken into it repeatedly - vandals and curious cats - but we didn't dare back then. We were absolutely content to just sit on the legal side of the fence and admire her in all her decrepit beauty.

It was 2011 - as grown adults - that we decided to have a look inside. It was dark and difficult to see all the finer details of its former glory, but we knew that we were experiencing history. It was exhilarating and terrifying and yet so satisfying. To this day I am still so immensely grateful to have had that chance - and to have taken it. And equally saddened that it's forever gone.

Stolen from me by a few misguided delinquents - some local, some not - and all hopes of LeBeau's restoration are now reduced to ash. About a week after I heard the news, I drove by again just to see it for myself. Her new transparency permeated my heart as though a part of me was now missing. I felt it. All the emptiness. Just as we'd connected so many years ago, now the empath in me was reeling in the wake of her loss.

Sadness.

Dr. Seuss offered us, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened." Unfortunately, that's a tough lesson to learn for someone like me, but this is me trying. After all, I knew LeBeau, and that's something fire can't touch.