Documentaries

The channels are filling with documentaries about the 10000 earthquakes we've had.

Mostly about 22 Feb's earthquakes.

Two days out from the 1st anniversary

it's like the air is tense with expectation and

commemoration.

Earthquakes are random

but on Wednesday we will all be on edge,

just in case.

And when 12.51pm comes

we will be still and remember.

Remember how we didn't know what was to come.

Remember how we thought we had had the worst

earthquakes after Sept 4th's 7.1 earthquake.

Remember how we thought the pre-Feb aftershocks were bad.

Remember our own experience of the 22 Feb earthquakes,

running from buildings, confusion and understanding.

Remember how the earthquakes haven't stopped.

Remember the aching checking on loved ones that Tuesday.

Remember the waiting and wondering

not imaging that hope was needed more.

Remember hearing about the buildings collapsed and burning.

Remember realising that Jo is in the CTV.

That her office was flattened,

worse... pulverised.

Remembering the slow horror of knowing there was no hope.

I'd never felt horror before

or lose of hope.

Remembering driving into Christchurch to rescue friends

and picking up strangers,

driving them home through no longer familiar streets

as they filled with slushy, murky liquefaction

not realising that the roads would open up and swallow cars.

Once there, their homes were leaning but stable,

their street filling with human waste and water,

as the neighbours stood, dazed watching

and I carried away my friend to my safe house.

But we will remember good things too

Celebratory, if premature funerals.

Laugh at the typically glorious exit that only someone like Jo can make.

She worked on TV, presenting curious programmes

and her death-trap building was filmed too.

Her funeral was captured on camera.

Her beautiful young adult children laughing and

sharing their crazy memories on current affairs TV.

Helping us all breathe deep and get past the darkest days.

Isn’t this overdramatic?

It is and it was.

All this remembering makes me tired and tense.

That's how we roll in Canterbury,

we roll with the earthquakes

cause they are coming anyway.