Sep
06
Like most people in Canterbury, I was sound asleep at 4.35AM on Saturday morning, 04 September 2010. I had gone to bed at about midnight with my wife and no doubt at least one of us was snoring heavily as the first tremors began to shake our house. Those first movements did not seem to rouse us from our slumber and I wonder how long our house shook, before we were startled into consciousness.
I remember sitting up in bed, with my wife already sitting up and looking around the darkened room. Everything – and I mean everything, house and all – were violently bouncing up and down and the noise was incredible. I looked around the room, stunned, and my wife said with a shaking voice, “EARTHQUAKE!, EARTHQUAKE!”
I jumped out of bed and headed to my son’s room, with my wife following closely behind. With every step I tried to take, the floor came up to meet my feet, almost negating any attempt on my part to run to Jack’s room. After what seemed like ages, we made it to Jack’s room and were standing next to his top bunk bed, where he was still sound asleep. Part of me wanted to let him sleep, protecting him from the reality of what was happening around him. I don’t doubt that he would have continued to sleep.
When he was about two, we lived in a rental property in Australia with something like fourteen fire alarms. One night, someone pulled up on the street next to our house and kept his car running for ages, with the car exhaust fumes coming in our open window (open to bring a breeze during that hot Aussie summer) and our fire alarms were set off in a cascade, with twelve of the fourteen alarms going off at an ear-splitting level. One of those alarms was in Jack’s room. He slept through the whole experience. We have always been lucky to have a child who sleeps so well. As I stood over Jack’s bed during the earthquake, for a split second I imagined that the earthquake would soon be over and how much better it would be not to wake Jack and bring him into such a traumatic experience.
After these quick thoughts, I reached down and shook Jack, telling him to wake up. As he started to become aware of us in his room, I tried – as gently as possible – to tell him that we needed to get him out of bed, because there was an earthquake. The house was still shaking forcefully as we picked him up and headed to the safest place in the house, a hallway that connects his bedroom to the lounge room. We stood in the hallway, me holding Jack and Kalena standing next to me and holding onto me and sobbing for several minutes.
One might imagine that when the shaking stopped there would be joy and relief, but such was not the case. The silence was deafening and one’s mind began to race, asking things like, “Is that all of it? Is there another one coming? What dangers are around us?” Kalena decided to leave the house and I wasn’t convinced that going anywhere was a good idea, but I certainly wanted to step out of a house that could be unstable and get into the open air. We had to keep Jack next to us, while we groped in the dark for things we needed, such as glasses, shoes, pants, etc.
I don’t think of myself as old – I am only 43. I have a great uncle who is 96 and in great health and his brother is about to turn 90 and still goes ten-pin bowling. During the moments after the earthquake, however, I realised how age is catching up with me. I squinted in the dark, trying to focus on the things around me. I realised that I could barely see without my glasses, but had no idea how I would find them. Wandering in the dark, feeling around for my glasses while my son held onto me, I realised how fragile we all are at any given moment. During my meditation exercises, I am encouraged to think of such things, but there is nothing like a dose of reality to bring it all home. Finally, I found my glasses on the bedside table – they were still there, but had jumped from one side to the other.
I then began to find my pants and shoes and after getting something on, I started to help my son get ready to leave the house. Kalena was dressed too by this time and I had found a torch. As we started to head out of the back door (the front lead to a deck a story above the ground and we couldn’t be sure the deck was safe), Kalena yelled that she needed her glasses. Damn it! By this point, I was more than eager to get out into the open sky and Kalena was about to turn around and go back into the darkness for her glasses. What if there was another tremor and she got hurt inside, while Jack and I were outside? What if we all stayed inside and there was more seismic activity and Jack got hurt? I wasn’t concerned for myself, but couldn’t even contemplate anything happening to him. I carried Jack back into the lounge room, while Kalena wandered around our bedroom in the dark and looked for her glasses. After what seemed like ages, Kalena returned with her glasses and we all headed out of the house.
The stars have never been more beautiful! Leaving the house and looking up at the Southern Cross, everything seemed normal. The house felt like a tomb that we had emerged from, back into the world of the living.
Jerry
(Director and Counsellor, Rekindle Counselling Ltd)