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“What are you going to do with that?” I ask

“Probably frame it,” she says, laughing. “For God’s sake, I’m an artist! I’ll probably paint it.”

Myrtle didn’t want to evacuate at first, but on Sunday, Charles convinced her she had to go.

“I vacuumed my house to the moon before we left to go for the hurricane,” she says, shaking her head. “I cleaned the house so that when we came back we would have a pleasant environment to come back in.”

“We stood right here in this driveway and laughed at her as we left,” Charles says.

“And wait,” she adds. “You wanna hear the best? Y’all are gonna die laughing. I collect rocks. I came out, picked out all my rocks and brought ’em inside and hid ’em! The rocks are gone. And the carpet’s gone! And it’s gonna be so damned easy to move, you won’t believe it!”

I laugh with Myrtle, and realize it’s the first time in days. Later, however, away from her family, her laughter is gone, her smiling face falls away.

“There’s nothing that can prepare you for this,” she says. “I have not cried yet. And I’m probably gonna go away and lose it completely. With all my joking and all my Myrtle-isms, I’m probably gonna lose it really bad. But right now…what can you say?…And this is the God’s truth for me: we have each other, right here. Some people don’t, and some people don’t have water to drink right now. And some people have dialysis and they need drugs. We can’t complain about this. This happens to other people, and they come back from it. And we’re going to come back from it, too.”

Photographic Insert

My brother and I, circa 1969. While I was still in my mother’s womb, Carter labeled me “Baby Napoleon,” but he was the true leader of our childhood campaigns.

This portrait of me was taken by my father, Wyatt Cooper. I was about eight years old.

On a trip to Quitman, Mississippi, in 1976. My father wanted us to understand and appreciate the shared soil in our blood.

My father in 1963, around the time he met my mother. As a child, I never saw the resemblance between us; now I look at pictures of my father and I see my face.

Carter at sixteen. After my father’s death, both of us retreated into separate parts of ourselves, and I don’t think we ever truly reached out to each other again.

Christmas, 1986: My mother, Gloria Vanderbilt, Carter, and I.

Posing with a Pygmy chief in Zaire, 1985. I was seventeen and had left high school a semester early. Africa became a place I’d go to forget and be forgotten in.

Moments after landing at the Sarajevo airport in Bosnia, 1993. I’m wearing a Kevlar vest and helmet for the first time. After a few trips, however, I rarely put them on.

Working out of a destroyed beachfront hotel in Sri Lanka, January 2005. Christmas decorations still hang from the lobby ceiling.

BRENT STIRTON/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

Searching for the bodies of two children, Jinandari and Sunera, in a hospital morgue in Sri Lanka, January 2005.

BRENT STIRTON/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

Children training to become monks on a beach near Kamburugamuwa, Sri Lanka, January 2005.

BRENT STIRTON/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

Early morning at a U.S. military checkpoint, Baquba, Iraq, December 2005.

THOMAS EVANS

In Maradi, Niger. During the summer of 2005, 3.5 million Nigeriens were at risk of starvation. These kids were some of the lucky ones not suffering from malnutrition.

RADHIKA CHALASANI/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

Writing in my hotel room in Maradi. We end up working around the clock. Shooting all day, writing and editing stories well into the night.

RADHIKA CHALASANI/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

Broadcasting from a flooded highway on-ramp in New Orleans, September 2005.

RADHIKA CHALASANI/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

Beaumont, Texas, September 2005.

Hurricane Rita arrives on shore.

JENSEN WALKER/GETTY IMAGES FOR CNN

THE NEXT DAY, Saturday, I leave for New Orleans. It’s only about fifty miles from Waveland, but the drive takes several hours because of roadblocks and traffic. Our team has grown over the last few days, and when we line up to convoy to Louisiana we have