13 years ago today. It seems a million years ago.
13 years ago today, a demon tore through the earth and shook Christchurch hard. Made some scientific theses facts. Forced scientists to rethink some things around earthquakes. Changed the look and character of the city forever. Hurt very many good people and killed a slew more.
I’ve banged on about it enough over the years for people to know my story and how I feel, or rather, how I felt.
Now? Now is weird. Even though I wasn’t born in this place, and didn’t even grow up in this place, I’m one of the ones who survived this place in one of its worst moments in modern history. What makes that stranger is some people I bump into weren’t here for it all, and when they’re Kiwis and I’m an import, that makes the situation weird.
This morning, I sleep in a little. I am half-awake, debating on whether to sleep in longer or get up when little Twinkle wanders down the hall and enters the bedroom, yelling, “NuMum! NuMum?!? NuMum! Why are you still in bed?!?”
I turn the bedside lamp on, give Star a pat on the bed — she often lays on Noel’s side, guarding me, watching me, waiting for me to awake — and lean over to see Twinkle sitting on the floor at the foot of the bed, smiling, with a look like, “Oh, NuMum. Good morning!”
I can’t be mad or even slightly perturbed. I scratch Twinkle’s head, which makes her purr, which makes her roll over on her back, wanting her tummy rubbed, which invites Star (now standing next to me, looking at Twinkle on the floor) to pounce on her. They play-fight, I try to break them up, but they gallop down the hallway, half-heartedly swiping at each other instead.
Once I am awake, Star greets me in the living room. Our morning ritual now consists of me picking her up and talking to her while I open the curtains. She watches attentively as I open each curtain up, the late summer’s sun breaking through the windows and warming the cool house up.
This morning, I tell Star about the earthquake 13 years ago and how glad I am she and Twinkle never had to experience any of it. That makes me think. Sissy remembered the quakes. She was here when they happened. Hell, she was our quake whisperer. I explain to Star how when we finally got home 13 years ago after the large 6.3 — and it hadn’t ended there, the earth pretty much shook continuously with varying magnitudes for every other second after that — Noel and I couldn’t find Phoebe, and we were worried something had landed on her or a window we hadn’t discovered yet had broken and she’d gotten out only to discover her laying as flat as she could under the couch, scared out of her wits.
Star merely settles down into my arms and “sucks her thumb” as I wander around the house, opening curtains as I rattle on. I think at one point, she yawns. That boring, huh?
Around 12:45 PM, I look at the clock and think, I must remember to have a moment’s silence and maybe a prayer at 12:51, the time the quake struck, as I used to do during the first 2 or maybe 10 anniversaries, but when I remember again, it’s 3 PM, Noel is home and I am making the spaghetti sauce for dinner.
There is a short item on the national news, probably in the third segment after two commercial breaks. Lately, I don’t have very many emotional breakdowns, but seeing those people who lost friends and family, seeing those short clips from that day, seeing the collage of photos with candles lit beneath, makes me well up. Noel says to me later, when something came up on YouTube about the 22 February 2011 earthquake, that he hadn’t realised it was the anniversary and wasn’t even really paying attention to the news.
It all made me think. All our pets who were alive on that day are gone. Out of all my work colleagues in the building when it hit, only Noel, Catherine, and I work there anymore. We no longer see most of the people who were our friends then for a myriad of rasons. My Grandma, one of the people I’d spoken to a few days before the quake, and in that moment when I thought I was going to die thought, “at least I got to talk to her one last time before I go,” is gone. My Mom, the last family member I’d spoken to a few days before the quake and who I called right after the quake over and over again (getting the unable-to-connect tone or no tone at all) and finally left a message on her voicemail to let her know we survived (for now), won’t probably remember any of that time. It’s very strange how things change.
So tonight, I am going to bed uneasy and slightly baffled but quite emotionally tired. That’s the way I have been lately: emotionally tired.
But I won’t dream of earthquakes or collapsing buildings or the earth jolting me this way and that; I’ll dream better dreams, ones that calm me and keep me asleep, with Noel, Star, Twinkle, and me, snuggly and warm in our bed in our safe, sturdy home.
Beam Me Up, Scotty 
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