The nightmares won't let Lachia Rodriguez forget.

She's been to counseling, even tried medication. But the images of bloated bodies, rape and rising water creep back into her consciousness, especially at night.

A year ago today, Rodriguez was with her family in New Orleans, watching her children and grandchildren open gifts, eating a home-cooked holiday meal.

Smiling. Laughing. Living life.

This Christmas, Rodriguez, her 13-year-old son and 3-year-old grandson live in a small Cape Girardeau apartment, separated from loved ones by the remnants of a disaster.

Four months after the storm hit, Hurricane Katrina is still pummeling Rodriguez and her family.

They have a tree, a small artificial one that the 13-year-old decorated. Until a few days before Christmas there weren't any gifts under the tree, but to the family its presence acknowledged the spirit of the season. Then, just before Christmas, new friends from the church they have been attending -- Centenary United Methodist -- arrived with armloads of presents. At first, Rodriguez was against celebrating the holidays at all. In her mind, there was little to rejoice. She misses her friends, her church, her home.

But then she thought about the night the electricity went out. That black, black night at the New Orleans convention center without light or water.

Throughout that night, she prayed over and over, "God, you've never failed me yet. You've always been on time."

The buses arrived the next day. Rodriguez and her family boarded one that first took them to Fort Smith, Ark., and then to Kennett, Mo.

A local church sponsored the family and relocated them to Cape Girardeau.

In her apartment on Hackberry Street, Rodriguez had been sleeping on a floor pallet.

Last week, the American Red Cross purchased a mattress and dresser for her.

She has a real bedroom now, she says, and that's enough of a Christmas present for her.

She lost everything in New Orleans, except the pocketbook and few clothing items she was able to stuff in a tote bag before evacuating her home.

She tries to stay busy during the day, cleaning, grocery shopping, cleaning some more. She has no idea what her future holds. As badly as she misses her old life, she's terrified of returning to New Orleans, afraid of what the next hurricane may bring.

"I take life just one day at a time. That's what I learned from all of this: take life one day at a time, because nothing is promised to us," she says.

She plans to spend today with the family she has here in Cape Girardeau -- her parents and brother, who were all displaced by Hurricane Katrina as well.

Despite her losses, the Christmas spirit just sort of crept up on her.

"Before I knew it we went out and bought a Christmas tree," she says. "Everything just worked out. It worked out well."

She may shed a few tears over the absence of other family members and the loss of the usual holiday traditions this Christmas.

But in the end, she'll smile at her grandson's antics. And laugh with her son. And continue living life, if only one day at a time.

cmiller@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 128