The Kindness of People Has Come Out All Over – Julia Christie

The Kindness of People Has Come Out All Over Julia Christie

And Kindness Lay All About

Stories from the Christchurch Earthquakes

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Glenn Busch

Julia Christie

Look at me. I said I wasn’t going to cry but these earthquakes have had such a devastating effect on everybody’s life. Even before it all

happened Dave and I had been going through a bit of a tough time, and in September I was here on my own with the boys. The first memory is leaping out of bed. I know I didn’t just lie there. I was up

and running for the boys’ room—they were then all in the same room.

When I got there the power was still on and they were okay. They were a little confused and asking what was going on. Felix and Elliot were

in the bunks but Oliver’s bed was on wheels and it kept going back and forth hitting the book-self that was beside it. I was a little confused

but still feeling quite calm until the lights suddenly went out and the kids started screaming and then it was like, oh no, no, I’m not prepared for this.

My first thought was for some light. I remembered I’d left my cell

phone in the pantry and that there were some candles there as well.

I’m not sure how—it was so dark—but I managed to find them both and a lighter and then I was running back to the boys who were still a bit excited. That’s when Dave rang and I was thankful I’d found my phone. He was just around the corner and jumped on his bike and

came straight over. It was so good to have him there. At first we just

sat, not really knowing what to do next. Everywhere it was pitch black.

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Dave knew from his ride over here how bad the roads were and so along with most others we waited until first light.

Once that happened, once the light came, people started coming

out of their houses and checking on one another. I remember it was a

nice day but cold as we stood about and chattered with the neighbours.

I suppose at the time we were all just kind of grappling with what had

happened. The road, the damage all around, it was quite emotional… but the kids were fine because we were calm… I don’t know why I’m

feeling like this now… in a strange way it was more exciting that first time. The house had been damaged. There were cracks that got bigger again in February. But it moved with the ground and I actually felt

quite safe in a way, I don’t tend to panic in those situations, the opposite really… it’s afterwards that you kind of think on things.

Then it’s five months later and I’ve dropped the kids off at school

and gone to pick up my mum. Our eldest son, Elliot, is dyslexic so mum and I were going to have a look at the Dyslexia Centre which is

in the city, close to the Art Centre. As it happened it was closed so we

kind of stood there for a while and thought about going further into

town together but the children had half a day so we decided against it. We picked them up and went back to mum’s house for some lunch instead. Felix was in the toilet at mum’s house and I was in the kitchen

with mum. Elliot was in the lounge and Oliver was at pre-school over

in Richmond when the shaking started again. Felix started to yell out, but when it’s happening you just can’t run can you, you’re all over the

bloody show. He was yelling and I’m trying to get to him, but kind

of swaying from side-to-side and as he came in one door I went out

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another. I did eventually grab hold of him but by that time it had stopped and we were all a bit stunned. Then mum’s neighbour popped

her head over and said ‘Are you guys okay,’ and we were just like ‘Yeah, yeah,’ and I thought I had better ring the pre-school just to see if

they were all okay there. It went straight to answer phone and I left a silly message, ‘Oh, I’m just checking to see if you are okay,’ I am sure

everyone else was doing the same. I was of two minds when I hung up, I didn’t really think it had been that bad. I guess it affected some parts of the city differently. I just wanted to check that he was okay. Then I

talked to Dave who worked in another part of the city. When I got off the phone I said to mum, ‘I think I need to get Oliver, now.’

I jumped in the car with the two boys and went down Blighs Road.

By now that was bumper to bumper. Trying to turn right when I finally

got to the intersection was a nightmare. The main road was just chocker.

The lights weren’t working and I was being quite polite and nobody

was letting me in. Finally I just edged my way in front of cars and then

we were crawling ever so slowly down Papanui Road. The boys were really quiet in the car just kind of looking out the window at some of

those beautiful big houses on the main road. They had been totalled.

Once I saw those houses, that’s when I knew, okay this is huge.

In my head I thought Oliver would be okay because… well, I

suppose I knew where he was, I knew it was a wooden house, I didn’t

let myself think that something could happen to him. We saw people walking, lots of people streaming out from town. There was someone

walking our way and I stopped and asked if they wanted a ride but she was walking faster than I could drive. Everywhere there were potholes

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in the road and a lot of streets blocked off. From mums to the pre-

school is a drive that usually takes about five minutes, that day it took at least three-quarters of an hour. I think he was one of the last to get

picked up, he was certainly happy to see us. The staff said he’d been

really amazing, cuddling other children and saying, ‘It’s going to be okay, its fine and look at all the liquefaction coming up.’ Apparently he’d been quite animated and they said thank God for him, because

a lot of the children were really, really scared while he was kind of, ‘Look at this, look at that.’

It took us a while to get home again. We’d only just got there

when there was another big shake. Thank goodness Dave had got

there before us. Outside the yard was covered in liquefaction and this

time the cracks where bigger. I suppose it’s just a house. Upsetting, but its liveable, you know, it’s a crack. There are more important things to worry about aren’t there. I mean I wouldn’t want to live like

this for the next ten years, that would drive you crazy but when you

look at the roads and the holes everywhere, there is just so much of it that you kind of accept it. The truth is you can’t do anything about it anyway.

We had no power again and no water and I think we stayed maybe

two nights here until it got too hard with the boys, you know, with the liquefaction and food and all that kind of stuff. And with no power we couldn’t see any images either. You could hear things on

the radio, but really we didn’t know how bad town was. I mean we

heard about it, but to see it is quite different isn’t it. In the end, with no power and no sewerage we finally went off to mum’s house. By the

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time we came back there was still no sewerage but there was power and water so life was manageable.

It felt good to get home. There was the amazing crack in the

concrete drive to look at but I always felt this house was quite safe. It

certainly moves. I mean it really does move, actually rocks like a boat, and there is the wall there that I’m a little bit dubious about. We’ve been told different things by different people about that wall, but

they all said that it would fall out if it was to go, not in. And there’s the relief of being in your home isn’t there. It’s hard living in someone

else’s house even if it’s the house you grew up in. You’ve still got three boisterous boys and sometimes they do break things. It’s also about

encroaching on someone else’s space isn’t it. I mean mum and I are extremely close, I know she would do anything for us, but it’s still

good to get back to your own space and not to have to worry so much about the boys or what they’ve been up to. At least here if there’s

silence you know it’s not because they have broken anything precious.

They have actually put a wee hole in the floor with a skateboard since

we’ve been back, I didn’t even know they had it inside. But these days

it’s like, oh well, doesn’t matter, it’s just another hole isn’t it. So yeah, strange to say, but it was good to be back in some kind of normality.

In June I was here with my sister and her baby, just newborn he

was, and we were together sorting some stuff out in the bedroom

when suddenly it was happening again. ‘Oh my God this house is crazy!’ This is my sister who’s got her own wee house in North Brighton, and she’s not feeling safe in here at all. Mostly I think she

was worried about her babe, obviously we were both a bit shocked. It

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was like, here we go again, and my first thoughts are to get the boys. So

she went off home to her house and I set out again in the car. I found them all outside at the school, teachers, pupils, the lot. There were

cracks in the field there and the liquefaction had started to come up

again. One of the teachers told me the large trees across the road were

thrashing about, bending over so much they were actually touching the

road. As you walked in there you could see the kids looking, wanting to see their own mum… wanting you to be her… I’m sorry… I’m getting

upset thinking about it again. And the little daughter of a friend comes

running over, ‘Is mummy coming, is my mummy coming?’ Yeah… that’s, unsettling.

Anyway, I got the boys home and they’re thinking it’s all quite

exciting. To them it was more about half a day off school. I was talking

to mum on the telephone in our bedroom and they were just sitting in the living room watching a bit of TV when it came for the second

time that day. The three of them are by the one wall I was worried about and this time it was really loud. All I could hear was glass. The

glasses knocking in the cabinet and a lot of other stuff like that. And screaming. I dropped the phone and ran but because of the shaking I

was all over the place and Oliver was like really, really screaming and I was terrified that the wall was going to fall in on them. I was kind of trying to get them to come over this way, but you know how hard it

is to move. It was the screaming, you know, it kind of freaked me out.

Then it stopped and he was fine with it. I think it was just the noise, it seemed so very loud that time and yet when I looked around there was nothing broken—it was weird.

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December it was more of the same. Dave had come home from work

again and afterwards we went across the road to be with my friend, her

daughter was really bad. She was in shock and she’d been vomiting.

She was in the car because she didn’t want to be in the house. In the end we got her to come back here and just hang out with the boys and

she seemed to feel better with that. Afterwards, our boy, Elliot, went back with them. She didn’t want to go back to her home but Elliot’s

a little bit older and so she went back with him and they watched a movie together and it kind of normalised things a little—if Elliot was going to go in then she would too.

I don’t think our boys have been affected, not really, not traumatised.

No, they just kind of talk about it, like, ‘Oh, that was a bit of a rough one.’ But then Dave and I aren’t affected so much either. We’re not

anxious, not stressed out about it. We aren’t crying all the time, you know, so I think that definitely rubs off on the kids. I think Oliver with

the screaming, I think just the noise and not knowing where I was, that’s what probably freaked him out.

There are a lot of good people in this street, strong people. The

irony is that since the earthquakes we have got to meet many we didn’t

know before. There have been street barbeques and meetings and so on,

people helping each other as people often do in these circumstances, it’s been great. But here’s the sad thing, just when you get to meet all these people, you learn that everything is going to disappear.

The news came the night before. An email that told us we’d find

out the next day if we were to go red or green or whatever. That was good. The last thing you wanted was to hear it on the radio, just out

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of the blue. The next day I went across the road to my friend’s place so

we could look together for it on the Internet but for some reason we

couldn’t find it. Couldn’t make it work for us. A little later Dave rang

and I could tell by his voice… I said, ‘You know don’t you.’ ‘Yes,’ he said.

And I’m like, ‘We’re red aren’t we.’

Nancy’s just standing there staring at me. We’d always thought we

weren’t in as good a position as Nancy on our side of the road, but I still thought we’d stay.

I said ‘What about Nancy?’

‘No, she’s gone red too.’

When I told her she looked quite shocked and we just kind of stood

there. ‘That’s not meant to happen,’ she said.

It’s not what I had wanted. I had always wanted to stay, but now

when I think about the sort of impact it would have on our lives for

many, many years, I don’t know. Maybe this will be better for us in

the long run. We get our money and we get to leave, and in terms of insurance and that kind of thing we’re probably sitting in quite a good

position compared to the people that are blue/green or still orange.

Getting our money out means we can at least move forward. That’s the positive side. What’s not so good is that with the price of homes going up like crazy we’ll obviously have to have a larger mortgage. I mean

it’s pretty obvious we are not going to be able to buy what we’ve got here—a reasonable sized section, big lounge, four-bedrooms—no, not

for what we’ll get from this place. Possibly we are going to be worse off.

But, you know, you’ve got to roll with it don’t you. You can’t do much about Mother Nature; you just have to take the good with the bad.

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There is a feeling of vulnerability at times and maybe you get a

little more teary over not a lot. Certain things feel out of your control and that’s not great. I used to go swimming quite a bit but now I don’t

know whether I want to be in a pool, not if there’s an earthquake and

I’ve got to get out and go find the kids. You definitely think more about where you are, more about exits and where you park your car. But then

at the same time I think it’s probably given us an opportunity as well.

What’s happened has changed our course perhaps but it doesn’t have to mean it’s changed for the worst. Before all this happened we were

pretty comfortable. More set in our ways perhaps. Today you might say we are a little less restrained. Open to other opportunities, and haven’t we all been reminded that people count more than material things.

My dad died not long before this and he was such a positive and

loving man. The sort of person who got in there and did stuff, just kind of fixed everything up. Yeah, he was the rock, and it’s been really hard not having him here to help. Dave’s family is a long way away in

England but my side of the family is here and they’ve all been amazing, really supportive. My uncle organised them to come over and help

clean up, dig out all that liquefaction. Everybody came and it was good

to have them but you do miss the ones that aren’t here. Dad made things right, he always did and I miss him.

The kindness of people has come out all over since this whole

thing began. I’ve always had good friendships but I think you kind of

treasure them a bit more, and family, you realise how lucky you are to have them. It’s all about the people really isn’t it, the community, your family and your friends. Knowing that there are places or people that

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you can go to, something we sometimes take for granted, well, not now.

Even others, the Salvation Army for example have been amazing. They

just turned up one day—I wasn’t here—and asked Dave how many children were here and was there a lady of the house and we all got

little presents. Just some chocolates, nothing major but it was really sweet, the stuff that warms you.

Brendon Burns, the Labour MP, is someone else that’s been pretty

amazing. Always ready to help, he came to the street barbeques and

meetings and did whatever he could. A little different from Bob Parker and the council, that’s for sure. Parker’s very good on camera, says all

the right things, but there’s been all that in-house fighting which is no help to anyone. Them and the EQC, I don’t think either has handled it

very well. I didn’t believe it when Burns didn’t get back in at the recent

election. After everything he had done, really put himself out there, it must have felt like a real kick in the guts.

As you may have gathered I’m not really a National Party fan.

They’ve done their bit and I’m grateful for that, but that’s more of a country thing than a government thing. I’m sure Labour would have

done the much the same, any decent government would want to look

after the people as best it could. One thing I’m not happy with is the

length of time everything takes and the confusion that seems to reign around getting things done. So much seems to be out of our control and when you have a deadline pending, like being told you have to get out of your home, it’s quite hard to just sit there and wait.

It’s not just your own home either; looking at so much of your city

in ruins is not something you ever really want to see. Like others who

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grew up here the place means a lot to me. Okay we have to get out of our home, but I don’t really want to leave the city. I mean sure it’s

possible we could go off and have a bit of an adventure, but we’d always

come back. Its where I grew up, where our lives are, where our friends are. It’s our place.

Today when I go into town its quite sad, you know, you feel rather

emotional because the buildings you grew up with have gone, all those visual memories that have totally disappeared. I actually went on the

bus with mum and my younger sister, Nina and her little boy Lewis—

those tours they started running through the red zone in the city. It was quite strange, quite funny really. We all got on and we are kind of

chatting and a bit nervous, then the driver makes an announcement.

‘You do have to be aware that you could die on this bus. If you wish, you can leave now. This is the only time after we start you can get off and go.’ Nobody did. After we passed through the checkpoint the bus

went very slowly so you could have a decent look. It was like a ghost town. There was no rubbish or whatever on the street, they had cleared

that up, but looking up you saw smashed windows and the ragged ends of curtains blowing out in the wind. It was like at a certain moment time everything had stopped. I suppose in a way it had.

Afterwards I felt a bit shocked because so many buildings, the place

as I knew it, had all come down. I had known it was bad, but this was a lot worse than I had thought. All those gaps where there had been things, places, buildings, now there was nothing. Just so much space.

It will take time, a lot of time I imagine, to make us back into a

proper city again and sadly Avonside will never be the same again.

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We get on the bikes sometimes of a weekend with the boys and ride

around, it’s quite good for them to see what’s happening. A few houses are already coming down. Most people would like to see a park here

now. Maybe a few sports fields for the kids or something. There are still a lot of beautiful trees around here, I would hate for them just

to bulldoze the whole thing. The best they can make of it now would

be stretches of green around the river, yeah, that would be pretty, and

maybe you’d feel better about losing your home if that were to happen.

Certainly better than at sometime in the future seeing other homes going up in place of your own. Homes that you could never afford to

buy. That would be the pits. And maybe that’s the benefit of stories. If

we don’t tell them, things don’t get passed down. What was once here just disappears and is quickly forgotten.

It’s not been an easy time this last year or so with the earthquakes

coming one after the other—we probably all know of situations where

the stress has ripped people apart—but for Dave and I, well, it’s

brought us together, yeah, in many ways made us stronger than ever.

There’s always a silver lining isn’t there and I guess that’s been it for

us. Plus we had my mum over on the west side of town. That part of the city was not so damaged. We were lucky to have lots of family in Christchurch all around us, so we knew we’d be fine. There was always

going to be a place for us if we needed it. God, it would be horrible

not to have family around at a time like this. Being on your own— not having others to rely on—there must be some like that. Can you imagine… imagine that. That would be too horrible.

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