"I Knew Her When ..."

After watching the videos below, I realized that Tione will probably be the first famous person in the future that I will be able to say, "I knew her when she was a baby, three years old, four years old, and eight years old." On Saturday, I was shown these three clips from her appearances on the Ellen show:







I previously posted a clip of her singing the national anthem at a Hornets game here.

On Sunday while in New Orleans, I attend Franklin Avenue Baptist Church where Tione and her family attend. I got really excited when I saw her enter the children's choir. The reason for my excitement? If she was there, I knew that her brother was there as well!!! I had not seen TJ since before Katrina. It probably had been four or five years since I saw him last. That is one of the strange things about New Orleans still. There are children that I have not seen since the hurricane and that I will probably never see again. For everyone in New Orleans, it is almost like these people have died (even though we know that they are still alive) because they are now disconnected from New Orleans. I thought this family would be one of them that I would never see again, although I knew they survived. I did not care that TJ did not remember me. I just had to hug him! I think that this is something that most people do not understand because they have not been through something like Katrina. I do not think that I did a good job of trying to explain it here either!