Life after...

It's May 30th 2013. So much time as passed since the major earthquakes struck the city of Christchurch. There have been numerous natural disasters around the world since we had ours. The news seems ever full of these huge events. I can't decide if there are more of them, or if I have become super sensitive to the pain of those who are going through such events. It has been so long since I updated this blog. The new normal of our life here seems almost mundane, but today, I realized once again that having gone through an event like ours, means that life has changed for me forever. I called Richard at work at 7am like I do most Wednesday mornings because he tries to be at work somewhere between 5:30-6 am. I always call to make sure he made there safely while I was sleeping. (So far, so good) "Did you feel the earthquake this morning?" he asks. "No, was there another?" says me. "Yup, quiet a long rumbling one. I heard it coming." I knew what he meant. A few, short years ago, that conversation would have made no sense to me. Now it is a part of my life. I reached for my phone and it was quiet easy to find geonet to check the size and depth of the earthquake. (It was a shallow 3.5, on the east side of the city). The fact that geonet.co.nz is so easy to find on my phone and computer is part of the new normal as well. But when I think about it, my smart phone is new, my house is new, having only two children living is new, my car is new. I have a new way of living. I'm alittle different myself. But not all that different and new in my life has do with the earthquakes. Life changes. I don't know what would be different in my life today if there had been no Christchurch earthquake on September 10, 2010. I don't know what life would look like for me had there been no earthquake February 22, 2011. I guess it doesn't matter. Every person who goes through a disaster, big or little, natural or manmade, personal or public, experiences change. And change can be awful...but it can also be good.

Good News Helps

I was really pleased with the news this evening. The target dates for establishing a temporary business and shopping area by the end October made me very happy. Our mayor seems to understand the people of this city love their CBD and by October 29, he hopes that we will be able to enjoy shopping and eating in the central city.

I'm so excited. This gives us something to look forward to as winter is setting in, and our sewage system remains of the brink of overload,our sink holes fill with rain and so many of our houses have cracks to let the cold in. We have spring to look forward to, the Cup Day and a chance to wander about our city again. Okay, so it will be in temporary buildings, and the ambiance of our heritage city will be changed. But I'm betting that we will replace all that with a new excitement of what the future will hold.

Most of our news has been rather dark of late. Worries about insurance companies not being able to meet their obligations, interviews with business people who are upset, closing down, or going elsewhere, have left me (and others I think) with a sense of despair. I know the news loves a good misery story, they sell more papers with them.

One of my favorite books, Angela's Ashes, starts out talking about Frank's miserable childhood. It had to be a miserable childhood, he writes, otherwise it wouldn't be worth writing about. I think that is true. I've lived such an interesting life and I thought I should be able to write a story about my childhood. I couldn't. It was just too happy. (I blame my parents for that!)

I guess that is the take the news reporters so often go with, unless it makes the reader miserable, its not worth the ink. But I want the news people to understand something, in Christchurch right now, we want good news. It sells.

And by the way, lift your glass of coke to the Coca Cola Bottling Company. They have just announced that they will be building a new bottling company here. Now there's some more good news. So I plan on having a coke or two in the city in October. Want to join me there?

Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome

There are many things that contribute to stress levels in post-earthquake living. Dealing with insurance is one of the greatest of all stress-inducers.

Now I don't want you to think our insurance assessors is a nasty chap. Nothing could be further from the truth, I mean this guy is just plain nice. We stood outside the Dallington house making jokes about disappearing down the fissure if there was another earthquake. The guy has a great sense of humour. But I wasn't laughing when we started talking about our insurance coverage.

Why is that an insurance assessor wants to make it feel like they are doing you a favour if they do what your contract says they have to do and what you have for paid them for years to do if you needed it? Does this seemingly sensible, good nature chap really think that he can fool me like that? Surely when Richard and I are standing there, talking and laughing with him, it is apparent that we can read--and pretty well. When he starts telling us that we should have out-buildings included into the measurement of our house, does he think that we are idiots? If we had all the out-buildings measured as part of our house, they would probably be accusing us of fraud, trying to claim more insurance than was our due. What insurance agency in the world is going to pay out the $2000-2200 per square metre of rebuilding costs for a house to rebuild a greenhouse or shed?

As I stood there, those jokes we'd been making about the fisure opening up and swallowing someone started to seem like a very fine idea!

No, Mr. Insurance Man, my out-buildings are not included in the measurement of my house, aren't you glad about that! You don't have to pay premium building costs to rebuild them...but you sure are going to have to rebuild them! That's what my contract says, and I can read.

The stress-inducer that come second only to insurance dealings, is lack of information. We could have called this government induced stress.

The thing about Lack of Information is that it has a companion named Rumours. These two
stress-inducers make the perfect tag-team. Rumours abound around the city about areas that are not going to be re-built. My Dallington neighborhood is right in the centre of all such rumours. Along with rumours that the neighborhood will be demolished and not rebuilt are rumours about what will be done with the land.

Rumours can only abound and cause stress when people don't get good information. That is what we need. We don't need to hear that something like 10,000 houses will be demolished and some suburbs may not be re-built, only to find out later that this was 'back of the envelop' thoughts rather than facts This only promotes an atmosphere of uncertainity with people forming opinions and spreading them like they are facts. We need information, as quickly as is possible.

I don't think I have Post-traumatic Stress Syndrome! I don't. I think I have some days with Insurance Induced Stress Syndrome, some with Lack of Information Induced Stress Syndrome, and then occasionally I get Rumour Induced Stress Syndrome. But, hey, I'm opened to an arm-chair diagnosis if you want to have a go.

Christchurch, The Garden City

I'm very tired this evening. I know why, it is because I had errands to run this afternoon. As I was out, trying to make my way from one end of the city to the next and then back again, something important dawned on me.

This is simply not the same city that it used to be. When I go out to do anything, I feel like I'm living in a different place. I've lived in so many places, different cities and countries. I'm accustom to changing surroundings. But when the place where you are changes around you, that is hard to deal with.

Some of my favorite cities in the world are highly populated places. Cities where the grocery store queues are long, and parking means circling, and driving means traffic. Christchurch was not a city like that.

When we were first thinking of coming here, Richard came for a visit. He came back and told us about this city, the garden city of New Zealand, the most English city outside of England. He said that for a city of around three hundred and fifty thousand people, it worked more like a town. For years we had lived in small villages, first in Cambridgeshire and then in Canada. We didn't see how we would adjust to a city of such size, but Richard was right, Christchurch was small and comfortable in feel. Easy to get around, slower than a city should be, pleasant and uncomplicated. It quickly became the city of our children. Christchurch was (maybe is) a city you can easily own.

On February 22nd, all ease fled. Christchurch is now complicated. The traffic, the closed roads, the long queues for every service, in every store, the circling for car parks, these things are worse here than anywhere I have ever been. In those cities where I lived in the past, there was tension and stress because life is more complicated. That, too, is truer of Christchurch now than any place I have been. Some people in Christchurch are still living with the worse of the earthquake,in areas that are broken, water that doesn't run properly, in places where roads are barely drivable. All of us live with nights often rocked by aftershocks, and everything we know changed. The words tension and stress are not good enough words to describe the feelings. You can see in most every face, and the lines around so many eyes, people are stretched. It makes it harder to reach down and find the patience that we needed more than ever before.

When I was a little girl, they had a saying, loosely based on a Bible verse. 'Don't pray for patience, because tribulation produces patience...' If you want to test out how well your patience has developed, come to Christchurch. But when you realise you need more than you have, leave before you pray for it. Because, frankly, I think we have enough tribulation for now.

The receptionist at Richard's work said it best to me today. Sue said, "The earthquake took the garden out of our city."

Changes in Me.

Today is March 19th, that makes it the 20th tomorrow. Don't ask me how I feel about it? You don't have to because I'm going to tell you. I don't like it. This Moon Man thing has really gotten to me. He has predicted an earthquake for tomorrow.

Here I am, normally, a sensible, thinking, blonde woman (yes! those are ALL compatible traits!) scared to death of the predictions of a man who has written a book about reading Cat's Paws. Is this what these earthquakes have reduced me to? I also bought a flat screen TV (not that you can buy any other sort, and since we have lost ours...)but it is connected to freeview TV! We haven't had a TV that does anything other than run videos and dvds in years.

These aren't the only strange happenings in my life. I will have you know, I bought bling today. Cheap stuff (well truth is I found out that cheap jewelry isn't really all that cheap!, and I bought a lot of it. It was fun! I now have three huge rings and four or so rather noticeable necklaces. If that earthquakes strikes tomorrow, and I go missing, just look for someone who sparkles.

Earthquakes, Fourteen Year Olds and Four Year Olds.

I think I might just the right person to write about this earthquake. Having lost so much in terms of material 'stuff' I think I understand the impact. More importantly I have so many children, so I see the earthquake through the eyes of a fair few ages.

Maddee who is four seems okay this round. She was traumatized by the September event and took months to recover. She experienced so many of the staple issues of trauma for her age, reverting to babyish behaviour, clingy, and not sleeping. Every aftershock was a major event. We seemed to be finally getting through the worst of it as February dawned.

Amazingly, Maddee hasn't regressed much after the last event. She has started back to pre-school, today was her first full day. Aftershocks can make her jump (me too!) and sometimes she needs a cuddle after a sizable one, but she is soon playing again. The only thins she does is refusing to go anywhere near the two broken houses, but that probably just makes her smart!

Let's face it, Maddee is a clever little character,and she knows how to use an earthquake. Just before we found our newest house, when life was almost unbearable for all of us, Maddee was adding to the stress with naughty behaviour. I mean we tried to give her a break with all that was going on, but eventually enough is enough. "You're going to have to go to your room," I said to her. She looked at me, crossed her arms and dawned her scowling face, 'I don't even have a bedroom anymore, it was broken by the earthquake!" She also has figured out how to get a toy bought for her, she just has to pull at her mum's heartstrings about how many toys are still in the broken house and can't come out. Poor wee lamb...hey?!

Izzi's feelings at fourteen are more distressing. It may be hard on her, but believe me, what she is feeling is tougher still on her mother . Yesterday, as we drove through the traffic to get to school, Izzi talked to me about her year. Her camp, which should have taken place soon after the earthquake is cancelled and she feels there is nothing to look forward to. Probably just her age? I don't think so, not this time. The earthquake means many of the activities outside school just can't happen this year. As she climbed out of the car at school, she turned and looked at me and said, 'Do you reaslise that everything I got for Christmas, except for my cell phone, is gone now in that house?" Then she closed the car door and left.

I drove away from school feeling angry and helpless. There was nothing I could do. Okay, there was one thing, I could talk Ric into making one more dangerous little trip into that house to rummage around and find some of the rocks from her prized rock collection. He found a fair few, put them in her favourite container and we gave them to her on Sunday, her birthday.

It's amazing what even a few of your special things can do to brighten up life.

Living The Ordinary during Extraordinary Times....Attempts to Cheer Us Up.

We sang some lovely songs yesterday at church. My favourite was 'On Christ the Solid Rock I stand...all other ground is sinking sand.' You can imagine how we laughed when they announced the song. We had to meet at 2:30pm in different building because ours is made dangerous by the earthquake. It will have to be demolished. The pastor was tired. He'd been out seeing to all his people in the hard hit Eastern suburbs.



A church in Reefton made a nice afternoon tea for our people. They baked enough for every family to take home a cake and sent groceries. Another church (of different denomination) had baked cocolate chip cookies, and someone had sent water bottles and chocolate bars. All done to cheer us up and fatten us up as well, I guess.



In the bank the other day, they were giving away bottles of water. There were a fair few people in the queues, which is true of most every service in the city. I got to the teller and what happens all over, to everyone, happened again. We exchanged our earthquake stories. It's like a requirement to the start of every conversation. We must tell our stories.



After the teller heard my story, she excused herself and left me standing. When she came back, she brought a gift card for groceries. It was only fifty dollars worth, but still, have you ever recieved a gift from your bank? Don't they usually just take your money, smiling with great joy as they do so?



Everyone wants to help and there are so many attempts to cheer us up.



The whole country spent a day wearing red and black, the colours of the Canterbury rugby team. Annoucements of fundraising dinners and sausage sizzles and other ways get money to help rebuild the city abound. Farmer's Department story extended their special sale for Christchurch residents, requiring another trip to the mall. Live music was playing upstairs, a place I knew people had been badly hurt during the earthquake. And yes, I did think about earthquakes the whole time I was there. Those thoughts can really spoil a nice shopping trip!



It's hard to cheer us up. We go low again so quickly. It only takes a call to the insurance, a nasty little aftershock, a story in the newspaper, and we are soon sobered.



But I say --Go ahead. Cheer us up. The chance to smile or laugh, even for a few minutes, means an awful lot these days.

Earthquakes and My Personal Loss.

I write about my personal loss during this Earthquake Event with a deep sense of gratitude. I lost a house on Sept 4th, I lost almost all my contents on February 22nd. Compared to the losses of life...I lost nothing.

From the moment of the Sept.4th Earthquake it was perfectly clear that our home, a dream house, set on the banks of the Avon River was destroyed. This house, not quiet 80 years old, had been a haven during the 5 difficult years we had lived there. The personal stresses that Richard, and hence, our family, had endured during those 5 years sometimes crept in the doors of that beautiful house, but for the most part we could lock them out, and retreat as a family. We laughed surrounded by the rimu paneling, and enjoyed the sunshine through the large windows peeking down at the river. We read books by the log fireplace, and made fun of each other in the dining room. I felt its loss, but my sadness was more for the value that it added to the scenic river, than for my own loss.

Oddly enough the Sept 4th Earthquake took few of our precious possesions. I mourned the loss of a broken pottery bowl that Richard had made when he was 17 or 18 years old. Glass shattered in picture frames, but for the most part, what was held in those frames remained in tack. At the beginning of this Earthquake Event, it was okay to mourn the loss of things. We were a city that had endured a 7.1 Earthquake without a single loss of life. But as it was I did not need to mourn much at all, for our contents loss were little, carpets, glasses, and a stove, the most replaceable of all possessions.

That all changed on Feb. 22nd. This strange earthquake, richter scaled at only 6.3 shook the ground at twice the force of gravity of the first event. No one needed to tell us that this was twice the earthquake, we knew it as the house shook around us vertically, till every south and north facing window blew out. I took no time to assess damaged when it finished. Ric put my shoes on my feet (I never wear shoes if I can help it!) and we ran for our children. It was a day later before I walked through that house.

I've lived an extraordinary life. My parents left the city where I was born when I was 6-7 years old. Since then I have wandered the earth, making 7 countries my home for long periods. Visiting many others. I guess I'm a 'Keeper' rather than a 'Thrower'. I have, or should I say had, beautiful things I've gathered around me from the world. A pottery set from Settle, Washington, a carving of the butterfly dancer from Bali, pictures from Texas, a limited edition print of Cambridge, England, maple tables hand-made from a friend in Saskatchewen Canada, a hand-blown jug from West Virginia, a little pottery person from the North Island, china mugs from England, pottery mugs from nearly everywhere in the world. The rimu furinture, hand-made by the prisoners of Paremoremo Prison on the North Island. Just a tiny page fromt the catalogue of my life. These things, these memories of my life are now shattered. When I walked through that house, it seemed my life lay in little shards across the floor.

I have things---of far less monetary value, which mean more to me than even these...baby clothing (can you imagine keeping baby clothing from 5 babies!), the quilt my grandmother gave me for my wedding, the quilts I made for my children. These are a few of the things I desperately want to find in that rubble.

As I write this, Richard is back at the Old 'new' house (Maddee's term). He probably shouldn't be. It's been 'Red Stickered'. So, as the law requires, we have had a qualified builder inspect it. It is unsafe, the roof too heavy to be supported by it's broken foundations. What can we take out? What will be safe for us to remove? Ric is there looking for those precious little things, the little memories, it may be unsafe to ever pull out the big things. I told him, no risks! No risks! No one thing is worth a life. Not a collection of piled things could ever replace a person.

And I know, in reality, that it was not my life that lay broken and scattered on that floor. It was only things. I have lived that life. I have those memories. I have written about my journey. It is not taken from me. I've shared those memories with my father, who recently returned to His Lord, I continue to talk about them with my mother, I use them to poke fun at my brothers, I laugh about them with my sister. My husband of nearly 26 years and I say..."Do you remember ...." and together we piece together some almost forgotten story of our life. Somewhere along my journey, these children of mine started saying, 'Mummy remember when..."

Memories are not the things. Things are reminders of the memories, and though I hope to save a few, and I feel a certain sadness at their loss. I still have those memories. And the people with whom I shared the experiences are not under rubble. They are safe. I have all that truly matters.

Written by Barbara on March 1.

Earthquakes and Personal Loss.

I've been intending to write this for a couple of days. I planned on putting it up as I put up photos of the two houses we have survived in this Earthquake Event. I have been overcome by a weariness that would not allow me to write. Today I was determined that before I went to bed, I would write these thoughts that wrestle in my brain. Today I would write.

But today, I also walked my street again. My beautiful street with houses all along one side, looking down at the Avon River. I walked it, and gave baking to my neighbors who are still there, still living without water, power, or sewage. Their immediate difficulties strangely out weighing mine. My house is so broken it is unsafe to live in, so many there have houses that are in awful states of disrepair, but inhabitable (if only barely). Then I spoke to a neighbor whose house is only one away from my own. A woman I had hardly seen while I lived on the street. She is one of a large family who have lived on Dallington Tce for decades. A close family who seem to need no one else. Her father-in-law (80 + years) was born on Dallington Tce. Her sister-in-law lives behind her, a niece also is in the same group of houses, there could be other family members, I don't know.

The woman looked at me, as she took the plate from my hand and said, 'Thank-you. I will pass this on to my parents-in-law. I say, 'I'm taking theirs now.' (They were the only part of the family I really chatted to on a daily basis.) She stops, 'They're not there, their house is unsafe.' Before I could say a word of sorrow, she goes on. 'You don't know, their youngest son, Phillip's younger brother, he was killed by a falling boulder in Sumner.'

There it is again. That greatest of all loss, the loss of father, son, brother, uncle. I read today about a boy, they called him a teenager, his fourteen birthday just past. He was a boy, an only child. His school was out early, and he had birthday money. He did what any child in this city could do before. He took the bus into the city to spend his birthday money. My own children, my son, Micah, whose 17th birthday is on Saturday and my daughter, Izzi, who turns 14 in two weeks, they do it all the time. All the buses went into the city bus exchange. There you could grab a bubble tea, a coke, an ice cream. Meet with friends at Mac Donalds, or the brand new place called Wendy's. Walk the shops, spend your birthday money. This boy, this boy like my son, the age of my daughter, is gone.

All over this once beautiful city, the pain and grief are ever present. Even on my own street. How can I write about my personal loss today of all days...for it is truly nothing.

Written by Barbara on Feb. 28th.

My Earthquake Experience.

At around 4:30 in the morning on Sept 4th, the Earthquake event began for me and for the city I live in, Christchurch, New Zealand.

I woke to violent shaking. I knew instantly we were in trouble. I feel like I woke Ric up, but I'm sure he was already awake. Our toddler had already crawled into bed with us at some point in the night, so I wrapped my arms around her.

'I've got Maddee.' I yelled, get the kids, Ric. Get the kids.'

It's all you think about during a crisis. Your children. Our lovely rimu (a protected native NZ wood) furniture was falling all around us. I didn't think the house would keep standing. All I wanted was my children safe.

Our girls were all upstairs, and came running from their rooms. Isabelle, 13 years old, had been thrown from her bed, but she was okay. We ran down the stairs, and as we did so the house went thump as the top story settled down on the ground story.

The front door would not open, not matter what force he applied. Richard ran to the back of the house, but the glass door between the living area and the kitchen was also stuck and our very upset sixteen year old son was on the other side of it away from the rest of the family.

'Kick the door, Micah, ' Ric yelled. (Now for your information, if you are ever in this situation my advice is NOT to tell your barefoot son to kick a glass door.) Ric might have known he meant the wooden door frame, Micah might have aimed for the wood, but his foot went through the glass. Now we had a bigger problem.

The shake had stopped, but the house felt unsafe. Of course, within minutes we had a large aftershock. Having never been through an earthquake before, we had no idea what would happen next.

No doors would open. We realised later, this was probably a good thing, for those doors had become the load bearers of the upper story of the house. Ric jumped through a front window, ran around and kicked the glass out of the front door and the rest of us came out. By then, Micah had made his way to the front of the house. His foot was bleeding profusely and he was in great deal of pain. I love males, they are so tough, except, of course, when they're hurt.

Maddee was clinging to me. Poor wee girl had not made a sound since it begain. Once we knew the family was safe, away from cars that could roll and power lines that could fall, Ric ran next door to check on our 79 year old neighbor. He seemed to be gone forever. I should have measured his absence by aftershocks.

The morning was black. I never remember seeing such darkness. The electric must have gone in the whole of Canterbury. Only the stars for light. Weirdly, it was beautiful, despite my sons distress, despite my freezing feet, and shivering spirit, the sky was amazing. Just then, when Micah went quiet and all was still, my little Maddee said, 'Look at the stars Mummy.' Then she started singing 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." It sounded so sweet.

As the dawn broke, we would see how much damage our house, our street and our city had taken. What we didn't know then, was that an Earthquake is an event that can last a very long time. And can get worse.