Ryan Wood

USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin

Wanda Lacy was home from work, but she wasn't ready to call it a day. The sun was setting outside Baton Rouge, La. Birds sang their song. Wanda and her husband, Eddie Lacy Sr., felt the warm, October breeze wrap around them.

"Enjoying the rest of the night," she says.

It's the same routine as from a past life, stripped from them almost a decade ago. Most evenings, Wanda and Eddie Sr. would sit in their garage with the door up, smiling as their old Westbank neighborhood in New Orleans came to life before dark. The parents of Green Bay Packers running back Eddie Lacy Jr. always preferred the outdoors to being cooped up inside, a trait their son adopted.

Then the storm came.

Nine years ago, Hurricane Katrina's wind and rain turned life upside down. The family was forced to move around, going as far as Beaumont, Texas, about 260 miles from New Orleans, before eventually settling into a trailer in Geismar, La. Their routine shattered, their home ripped away, the Lacy family missed the simple things most. A table big enough for Sunday night dinners with the entire family. Kids riding their bikes on the sidewalks. Barbecues in the backyard.

Wanda especially missed watching the birds and trees and sunsets over her Bayou home.

"We basically stayed inside a lot," she says.

Until two months ago.

In late August, Wanda and Eddie Sr. moved into their new home in Geismar, about 20 miles south of Baton Rouge. Eddie Jr, the third of four Lacy children, insisted on paying for his parents' home. On the day they hired a building contractor, Wanda thanked her son over and over until Eddie Jr. asked her to stop thanking him. Then she thanked him some more.

The house meant more than four walls and a roof. For the Lacys, it brought back long-lost peace. Eddie Jr. will return to his hometown when the Packers play the New Orleans Saints on Sunday night in the Louisiana Superdome, but he's anticipating another trip more. On Monday, the first day of the Packers' bye week, he'll fly back to Louisiana to visit family.

For the first time, Eddie Jr. will see the house he helped build.

'Remember, God is able'

Her voicemail is a beacon of hope. In a cheerful tone, Wanda starts off traditionally enough. She asks for name, number and message — the usual.

Before signing off, Wanda offers a message herself.

"Remember," she says, "God is able. There's never a situation that is too hard for him. Only believe."

They are words of faith from a woman whose belief has been tested over the years. Wanda, born and raised on the Westbank, remembers watching the news with her family inside their small, Beaumont motel room. The images were devastating. She turned to Eddie Sr., both of them already knowing they had to change plans.

The Lacys wouldn't see New Orleans again for almost a month. From afar, they tracked the destruction. Wanda's father, separated from the rest of the family, fed them daily updates while taking refuge inside a fire station. His stories were the worst parts from an end-of-the-world novel. Survivors waded through neck-deep water scavenging for food. Dead bodies floated down city streets. Looters saw their opportunity, and seized it.

Time hasn't faded the memories. Even today, Eddie Jr. says they're engrained in his mind. He can't forget.

"It's where I was born and raised," Eddie Jr. says. "I've been through a lot there — good things, bad things. It's my roots."

Eventually, the waters receded. The Lacys found a back highway to drive from Geismar to New Orleans. Determined to return home, they navigated the wreckage that littered their path to the Westbank.

As they drove down their neighborhood street, Wanda knew it was bad. Laughter that once filled the Westbank was gone. In its place was an "eerie silence." The raw aftermath was overwhelming.

Telephone wires lay on the ground. Policemen walked around with rifles, discouragement for looters. Those who stayed and weathered the storm peeked their heads out broken windows, pleading for water.

"It was just unbelievable," Wanda says. "It was something out of a war zone movie."

Their brick, three-bedroom house was barely recognizable. In the front yard, three trees and a fence had been ripped up and blown away. The foundation cracked and shifted. When the front door opened, the rotted smell seared into their memory.

Inside, a foot of water still stood in the house. Furniture was warped. The family wore masks as they walked through their home. Mold ran up the walls, covering everything the looters left behind, including a new refrigerator and oven. All that remained was ruined.

"You just couldn't believe it," Wanda says. "It was like, 'Oh, my God.' It didn't look the same. Things just shuffled around, you know. The sofa one place, your dining room table another place. It was just unbelievable."

'There's never a situation that is too hard for him'

Even after the Packers made him rich, Eddie Jr. slept on the sofa. When he visited his parents during the offseason, all 5-foot-11, 230 pounds spread out each night inside their cramped trailer. Comfort was unattainable.

The Lacys moved in when Eddie Jr. was in high school. They stayed until August. Through college scholarships and national championships, a signing bonus and NFL rookie of the year award, the trailer provided a roof over his family's head and little else. This summer, the walls started collecting mold and mildew.

From the day he received his signing bonus, Eddie Jr. urged his parents to find a house. He asked every day, in every way. Their only hesitancy was timing. Wait until a second contract, his mother told him.

Finally, he gave them no choice. Either his parents would start the house hunt, or he'd do it himself.

Wanda saw her future neighborhood for the first time while driving home from church one Sunday. It was a new development, a safe place. She veered off the interstate, traversed the roads until arriving at a large model home with three pillars on the front porch. It was a sign.

Since childhood, every version of Wanda's dream home included pillars.

"When you see them decorated around the Christmas holidays with the stream of lights coming around, there was just something about columns that I just loved," she says.

Wanda wanted more than pillars, of course. Her taste was simple. An open floor plan. Split level, so Eddie Jr. would have his own suite with a bathroom when he visited. With their youngest child, Brittany, studying nursing at Southern University, Wanda and Eddie Sr. mostly have the place to themselves.

Yet they still built a house with four bedrooms.

The extra space has a purpose. Before the Lacys moved into their trailer, they shared a home with a family in Geismar, part of an online housing program for Katrina victims. Before that, they crammed inside the three-bedroom home of Wanda's sister, along with four other families. Wanda was thankful for the help, but she called the experience humbling. If another devastating storm ever comes, the Lacys will be ready.

"Now our home is able to be open and offered to the family should someone need somewhere to stay," Wanda says. "People were able to do that for us, family and new friends that we met. So now we're in a position. Should that happen, the doors are always open."

Eddie Jr. was playing in the Packers' third preseason game when his parents moved into their home. They sent pictures, too many pictures to count, so many pictures he had to ask them to stop. He wanted to leave some surprise for the first time he saw the house in person.

Two months later, Eddie Jr. still is waiting. His mother's excitement has been enough. She calls it her dream home.

"I was happy, man. Just knowing that they don't have to be cramped up in that little trailer no more," Eddie Jr. says. "They have a lot more room. It's just positive vibes all around. There's no reason for them to be like, 'Oh, we have to drive back to a trailer,' or 'Why are we still in a trailer?' It's more like, 'Coming home from work, at least I have a house and a comfortable bed that actually fits in a room, and we still have room to walk around and stuff like that.'

"I have peace in a sense that I know that my parents are now more comfortable than they were in the past."

'Only believe'

Eddie Jr. isn't thinking about a homecoming this weekend. This business trip may be to a familiar city, a place he once called home, but there's no time for reflection. He has a game to win.

Yes, there will be family sitting in the stands. He has gathered 10 tickets so far. Many more family members will show up at the Superdome just to tailgate in the parking lot. Some are searching for tickets. Others are planning watch parties in their homes.

Wanda never imagined this when her son was a child. Even when the Packers drafted him, nobody anticipated a road trip to New Orleans in his second season. Right now, Wanda jokes, it's like her son against the city of New Orleans.

In college, Eddie Jr. played in the Superdome. It's where Alabama beat LSU in the 2012 national championship game. This, he says, is different. This is the Saints. No, Eddie Jr. never was a Saints fan — or a football fan, for that matter — but he knows how much the team means to his former city.

"I would like to have one of the biggest games of my life," he says.

After the game, they'll return home. The concept is simple enough. But not for the Lacys.

Wanda thinks about the past nine years. The valleys, the winding paths in their road. They only made this new reality even sweeter.

"I feel as though the Lord blessed us with double our troubles," she says. "We had a nice, three-bedroom home, and now this one is even bigger. Little by little, He's replacing everything that we lost, and that's through our son. We're so grateful that he can have a peace about it. He can know that, 'I can build new memories here. My parents can build new memories here.' Not to forget the old, because you never want to forget your past, but you build from that."

The Sunday night dinners are back. So are the backyard barbecues. A couple of weeks ago, Wanda's grandkids visited. They rode their bikes in the driveway. It was like the Westbank coming to life once again.

Eddie Jr.'s parents can't wait for him to visit. They'll watch the sunset outside Baton Rouge, listen to the birds, feel the warm, October breeze wrap around them. Enjoying the rest of the night.

— rwood@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @ByRyanWood