A time to mourn
Last September 4th I was awakened by a phone call sometime about 2:45am as I lay sleeping in Sydney. My wife, voice strained and anxious, said “There’s been an earthquake. It’s dark, we’ve lost power and I don’t know whether to leave the house or not.”
As it transpired the house was more than okay. Whilst hundreds of homes lay twisted, collapsed and broken our home had three hairline cracks in a long polished concrete hallway. When we drove around it seemed like every brick chimney in the city was gone. But a small price to pay. It wasn’t a small earthquake, it was 7.1 when the Haiti quake of the same year was 7.0 and 316,000 people died. No one died on September 4 and people called it the miracle of Christchurch. From our hillside looking over the plains to the southern alps we gave collective thanks we had been spared.
It has been a hot summer and we were grateful for a cooler day. Showers passed through and the morning passed quickly with my to-do list in front of me. I was annoyed the local banking web site wouldn’t process my transfer because it was a bank holiday in the USA. I was wanting to get things wrapped up because lunch was looming.
At 12:51pm it came. A wave like the wake from a gigantic earthworm just under the surface. It started only a couple of kilometers away with the force of 42 kilo tons, we hardly heard it coming, so it was traveling near the speed of sound. Holding each other we braced in the door way of the office listening to a symphony of smashing glass and deep roaring as the house fought to hold back the wall of power.
Buildings collapsed full of people. My brother stumbled out of his city office to find his building the only one in the row still standing. He couldn’t see the other side of the street for dust but could hear the cries, walking past the dead to help the living. Andrews’ nephew died, crushed by falling masonry while sitting in a Bus. James and Rebbeca are okay but his friend is dead. Wally was in the CTV building when it collapsed and Donna is a widow now. We’ll never hear his drums play again.
This time the faces are grim set. This time we look at smoke rising from the city and are thankful the rain will help put them out. The grey clouds seem somehow appropriate. This time everything changed and so much has been lost or broken. The Arts Centre - gone as we know it. Old Girls High, Cramer Centre, The Provincial Chambers, Peterborough Centre, the Time Ball in Lyttleton, Christchurch Catherdal, Knox Church where we buried Graeme last year. Quinns at Merivale. Rugby Street where we were married and the Pacific Island church on the corner of Madras and Armagh. All swept away in a moment.
For everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven:
a time to seek and a time to lose;
a time to break down and a time to build up;
a time to weep and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Let the mourning begin.
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