The LW needs to stop obsessing. Stop the thoughts by popping a rubber band when she thinks them, whatever. The obsessing is holding her back.

My mother's house was across the Leon C. Simon bridge from Gentilly, near Lakefront Airport. Everything was destroyed by 5 feet of water. If the cabinent sat in the house it was possibly mold covered. Once the mold got it, it was not salvageable. I believe the landlady probably did throw it out if it was moldy. She had no choice. The mold spreads, and it was a massive problem in that area. Once any mold got on something, out it went.

If it was saturated with water, it was also a goner. There's no way to clean the filthy, chemical saturated water out of the wood. The piece may have looked OK, but it was probably not OK. It's contaminated. If you clean it with bleach, it will snap. If you don't, the chemicals will eat through the wood.

No one I know is taking that furniture. It was burning people's hands to touch some of the contaminated pieces.

Let it go. We lost my grandmother's furniture, the one hundred year old piano I was supposed to inherit, pictures, art, musical instruments, the works. Nothing salvageable. It broke my heart, and many other people's hearts. I still mourn. But my 70 year old mother got out, as did many relatives. Other older relatives and friends have died of heart attacks from viewing the wreckage. I know my family is lucky, and I have to not obsess over the loss.

The LW is in mourning. She needs to mourn and let it go. It's gone. Nothing will bring the chest back.

She's focusing on the chest, because a whole way of life is gone. Nothing will ever be the same. Thinking

My mother still cries every once in a while. 70 years old, and all she has to show for it is a shell of a double house, a good pension, and a car. But she's luckier than most. Many lost health insurance, jobs, loved ones. She still picks herself up and keeps going, because she has to. Because nothing will bring those things back, and she needs her strength to deal with governmental incompetence and corruption in the rebuilding. We deal with the tricksters, the con men, the evil predators every day. By focusing on the good people who help, who are coming down to aid the rebuilding, who good city, state, and federal workers help navigate the Byzantine set of rules about who can rebuild and how, not to mention the craziness of taxes, we keep ourselves sane. from this horro came a million people in a million ways doing good. Focusing on the good is hard. The bad always seems to speak more. But the good is there, and it can help keep you sane.

God bless you LW. I pray for your ultimate recovery.

It would be nice if you got the cabinet back, although I'm not holding my breath. But the truth of the matter is that it is just a thing. Now, the family photos -- that's something else entirely, but at least your memory is intact.

For the past year I've been collecting interviews for an oral history -- stories from people who were children during World War II. It is thanks to them that my perspective on "things" has changed. So many people have told me about fleeing their homes on a moment's notice, leaving everything -- and in some cases, everyone -- behind. One woman said to me, "Money is round. It goes, it comes back." Another described having to relinquish to the Nazis her brand-new fur coat. From that day, she said, she decided that she would enjoy everything she had every day -- because she could lose it all tomorrow.

Many people lost many things, but it's not for the clothes and the jewelry and the real estate they mourn. Those are just things.

A very wise friend once told me, "Don't cry over something that can't cry over you."

It was good advice then, and especially is now.

domini, you think the cabinet really was thrown away. But none of the other surviving stuff was thrown away; nothing was touched that "Still Underwater" didn't throw out herself. Add to that that the landlady is probably in a bad financial situation, and may have succumbed to a relative or friend's persuasion that she needed the money, that SU was taking advantage of her by keeping her stuff there without paying rent.

I don't think it helps to try to smooth this over with "it could really have been thrown out all covered with mold." That sounds too close to me to "we're sending Fluffy to live on a farm." I don't think SU is going to ever believe it. I don't know if she's right, but I don't think we're going to be able to change her mind.

Personally, if I believed it was not thrown away, I would not talk to the landlady for a long time, maybe five or ten years. I'd be afraid of what I would say and what I would do. Cary has it right that someone coming to the landlady with an accusatory tone isn't going to get anywhere. But I think Cary is wrong that SU will be able to discuss it rationally, not be accusatory. I don't think I could.

I think Cary is right that SU has to let it go. Wrong to think that it can happen by poking at the wound like that. But we all have different emotional constitutions, and SU might be more like Cary than like me.

Practical note: If it's really important to try to get the cabinet back no matter what, SU's husband could ask the questions that Cary suggests. He's more likely not to get the landlady on the defensive because he's probably not going to be blisteringly angry or in total meltdown about it. "Just business" which, after all, is their relationship.

The bigger thing that got lost here is trust. Getting the cabinet back won't restore that. And hearing something she thinks is a lie isn't going to settle SU's heart.