Things That Used To Be Important – Philippa King

Things That Used To Be Important Philippa King

And Kindness Lay All About

Stories from the Christchurch Earthquakes

Š

Glenn Busch

Philippa King

It was really weird, I’d just done my first shift at work—I work for Stepping Stone Trust—my first ever orientation shift that night and I was so exhausted that I came home and went straight to bed. I hadn’t taken my clothes off; I hadn’t even taken my makeup off. I just fell

asleep and I woke up again about 1 am. I thought, I really should get

into my jim-jams but of course I was asleep again in a minute. Then

it hit us and being so deep asleep and so dark, I honestly thought it was a dream until suddenly that parental instinct just kicked in—the kids—and in a second I was out of bed, fully dressed still, and ready to go. We didn’t even discuss it, we just ran. Geoff was headed for Sally’s room and I was going for Harry. I had no idea we could move so fast.

We managed to get them, I don’t know how we did it in the pitch

dark without anybody hurting themselves but we all ended up in Harry’s room in the bottom bunk, huddled up together through the

night. It was absolutely terrifying. The kids didn’t even want to let me

go and get a torch. Here’s a funny thing. Harry for some reason had a bible by his bed. He’s in a youth group and so we got it out. I was

reading psalm twenty-three and it was really re-assuring. A bit silly, but at the same time it was very comforting because all about was pitch black. We had no idea what had happened and it was another hour or

two before we had any daylight. It was… to be honest, I don’t think I’ve

1

ever been so scared in my life as then. It was scarier than childbirth and that was pretty awful.

At some point I managed to get hold of a girlfriend. I sent a

text to her in Wellington and asked if she was okay, because that’s

what we imagined had happened. We thought it was Wellington.

She said, ‘No, it’s you! You’ve had a massive earthquake.’ Then all

the phone calls and texts started coming through. I’ve got a cousin who works in Government in Wellington, I think he’s with Civil

Defence or something, so he fairly quickly rang to see how we were.

That was when the concern about family really kicked in. Were my

parents okay, because they’re elderly and they’re in Papanui. Yeah, it was really just making sure that everybody was fine after that.

And when daylight arrived we went out to check on our neighbours.

Oh we thought, it’s not so bad. The world looked normal. It looked like the world that we knew. There was not a lot of damage around

us at all, but then I walked down to the end of the street and of course Retreat Road, it was unbelievable. Totally unexpected, and suddenly our world was not normal at all, our perspective had been quite literally, shaken. The entire area we were looking at was under

water and you realised how lucky we’d been. Compared to elsewhere, honestly, nothing had fallen over, it looked like we had no damage at all. I think we felt at that moment that we’d really dodged a bullet.

You couldn’t dodge the sightseers though. I remember later on in

the afternoon hundreds of them coming. The roads were all blocked

up with these people coming to see the damage in Avonside. And

yeah, that was, that was actually really upsetting. A few hours before

2

we lived in our community, for a few days after, it felt like you lived in a zoo.

I got a phone call then from friends who live in Keller Street.

They’d been up in Hanmer and asked if we would mind having a look

at their house. Sure, fine. Well it took us nearly an hour to get there because of the flooding and normally its five-minute walk. We ended

up walking right round Avonside Drive just to get back to their

place. That was the first time we saw liquefaction, and the damage, we were just… I guess awestruck would be the word. Yeah, that initial

earthquake really threw us. Watching the water rush past, no power

and of course we were still having shakes. Everybody’s asking each other if they are all right; it was like the world had shifted and the

only comparison I can make is when I came home from the hospital

with Harry, when he was a baby, and realising that this is it. I’m now

a mother and you can’t go back. Your life is never going to be the same. We slept in the lounge for a long time after that. We did the

whanau thing, sleeping together as a family. Slept with our clothes on for quite a while. Geoff eventually went back to bed but the kids and I were there for about two weeks. It was terrifying but of course all that got superseded in February, didn’t it.

Boom! It was the surprise of it, like a sort of sneak attack. You

think everything is back to the way it was and then once more you find the world as we know it has shifted. I’m rather embarrassed to

confess I was lying on the sofa that afternoon watching television.

I mean we were having jolts every now and then just to remind us, weren’t we, but perhaps it’s a human trait to expect life to continue in

3

a certain way. Maybe what the earthquakes have taught us is that

that’s a long way from the truth. That we have no control whatever over what happens and that we can take nothing for granted.

Harry was home too; they had some sort of half day at Shirley

Boys so he was on the computer and as I said I’d been lying on the

sofa. I’d finished a book and I was relaxed and being really lazy

and the next moment the world was a terrifying place once more.

It really put September in the shade. Harry and I both ran for the lounge door and we were sort of holding on to each other and the

only thing I can say is it was like being in a giant washing machine.

And the noise and the doors banging and just the… the destruction and damage in the house, I’ve never seen anything like it. We lost a lot right there.

After that it is like a kaleidoscope of memories. Absolutely

surreal. I said to Harry we have to get outside. According to him I became hysterical. All I could say was I haven’t brushed my teeth

and I haven’t got any shoes on. But the first thing I knew we had to do was check on our neighbour who has two small children so I sent Harry over to do that.

Outside there was the despair I think we’ve all felt, watching the

liquefaction erupt once more. That sinking feeling that slips into

your soul when you see all this stuff pouring out of the ground again.

There was also a whole bunch of Avonside Girls standing at the bus

stop and the poor things were just so terrified. I said don’t worry, you’re fine, I’ll look after you and I put my arms round them. My

way of coping, bossing these poor girls and telling them it’s okay.

4

Next thing a bus comes along and they all hop on. I said, ‘Are you sure this is what you want?’

‘Yeah, yeah, we’ll catch the bus.’

Goodness knows where they ended up. And the liquefaction was

still pouring up from the road it was almost like, not end of time, that

sounds incredibly dramatic, but it was like your brain just can’t cope.

We went next door and stayed with Sarah until her husband came

home from town and that’s when we started getting people walking down the street and they looked like—I mean they were obviously in shock, they just looked terrible. Finally her husband arrived, I can’t

imagine what he’d seen, nothing very good I imagine. That’s one of the things I feel really blessed with in my family, that none of them has seen anything they shouldn’t have seen.

I’d managed to find out about my daughter, Sally, she’d been smart

enough to go to her old intermediate school and was well looked after but I had no idea where my husband was. The phones wouldn’t work and Geoff does a lot of commercial maintenance work so I was scared that he might have been in a collapsed building, that we could have lost

him. I had to get to my child of course so I ended up writing on the driveway, I’ve gone to get Sally and I love you.

Harry and I had trouble getting through at first because of the

flooding but eventually found a way over one of the bridges, just two of many people trying to get somewhere and of course we had all these huge aftershocks happening all the time as well. When I finally got to Sally I just grabbed her. Shirley Intermediate was brilliant. The

teachers were amazing. Then to get back home again we did this huge

5

circle and we ended up walking down the middle of New Brighton

Road because of all the liquefaction and flooding and of course the

cars were gridlocked. We just sort of waded through all this—ruining a favourite pair of shoes in the process. But the people we saw coming

from town just looked… I don’t know it was like something from the

walking dead. They were just heading home, trying to get home, and cars were being dumped everywhere. We had cars dumped down our

road. By the time we finally got back Geoff was home and that was… you know, he’s probably got a different memory from me, but we threw

ourselves into each other’s arms and said I love you, or something like that. I know I was so very happy to see him there.

Later we looked at the house and the damage and we just couldn’t

believe it. The mess. There was liquefaction all under the house, in the backyard, the driveway, it was just everywhere. We were really lucky not to get it inside the house. God there was so much damage, and

the aftershocks were still coming. We decided in the end we couldn’t

stay and that we’d have to go to my parents. Unfortunately there was hardly any petrol in the car, which meant there was nothing for it but

to get on the bicycles. I hadn’t been on one since whenever so it was an interesting ride, what with the aftershocks and the flooding and worrying about all the potholes we couldn’t see.

That night, my parents still had power and we could watch TV

and see what was happening. We just sat and cried. It was that… we

couldn’t believe that it was Christchurch, that it was our home, we

couldn’t believe what we’d lost. I think it’s only now that we’re coming to terms with what has happened—that this could happen—and that

6

so many people could be so affected. That people died! We were sat glued to the television. We just didn’t move. I know that I was holding

hands with my mother and crying. We drank a whole bottle of wine between us, I don’t think we’ve ever done that before.

The following day we came back to start cleaning up the house as

best we could. We knew we had no water. We had no power. We also fairly quickly realised that our pipes had all been torn apart, so, first

things first, we had to do was dig a toilet. It’s a very natural reaction to an earthquake; two things you’re always going to need, a cup of tea and a bowel movement. So that’s what you do.

Not that it’s any sort of a joke to yet again be surrounded by

liquefaction. It’s a sickening feeling to see it rise around you and

know there’s nothing else for it but to get back into the gumboots and with the help of the kids and friends begin the immense effort of digging yourself out. Somehow, this all seemed to bring out both the

best and the worst in people. I found it incredibly frustrating to have the sightseers and nosey-parkers coming by just to look at you. I can appreciate people wanting to understand what’s happening but not if

they’re just driving past with a coffee in their hand simply having a gawk. One car speeding past splashed me all over. Totally covered me

in liquefaction. In the scheme of things, a trivial incident really, but

apparently at the time my language was not what it should have been.

All I could think of was, when will I be able to wash my hair again. We

were wearing the same clothes day after day and of course no shower.

In the end though it’s amazing what you can do with one little basin of hot water.

7

The other side to that story, the best part, happened on our second

or third day of shovelling. Two guys driving by just stopped and asked

if we needed a hand. We got a lot done that day and of course we gave them a beer to say thank you, but the thing is, to this day I don’t know

who they were, or why they stopped. I guess for many of us the things

we focus on have changed. Things that used to be important no longer

occupy the centre stage. We’ve all been reminded that people, life, looking out for one another, those are the things that should always be

at the top of our list. As for those two guys, my guess is kindness. Yeah, simple kindness.

You know in the cartoons when they have those strange movements,

impossible things happening, that was how June started. I was outside

hanging out the washing and I saw the trees start to move and then as I watched, suddenly everything was moving. The second one –

the big one—hit after I’d got Sally from school. We were dropping

some friends off as it came. They’d just got out of the car and we sat

watching them stand in the middle of the road trying to stay upright.

We got home to find our front door had blown open and once more

the liquefaction was pouring out everywhere. It’s weird the little things that really upset you but we’d just tidied up the section. We’re not

house proud or anything like that but we’d just got the section looking reasonably tidy. Geoff had moved the clothesline for me and all I could think of was, oh, not again.

It’s not just the physical things either is it. Geoff was at work and

the kids were at school and I was spending a lot of time on my own

at home. I didn’t have a lot of work at the time because I’m a casual

8

reliever, plus I’d been doing a paper at university but because of the earthquake they’d cancelled it. So no university, not a lot of work

about, and just being at home felt almost as if I’d been disconnected. I was doing nothing much and it felt exhausting. I ended up incredibly

anxious and tearful and so I took myself off to see this lovely elderly aunt I’ve got. She’s eighty-two and I just sat on her doorstep and cried and cried, it was hard to stop.

She was great. She was dealing with it. She gave me a cup of tea

and said, ‘You need some drugs, you need medication.’ I thought, she’s

right, I hadn’t actually thought of that because I’m not normally the kind of person that cries. I tend just to soldier on. You know, I mean

I’m going to be a social worker for goodness sake. I’ve worked in all sorts of jobs where you just keep going.

I don’t mind telling you this because I know I had become

withdrawn and I just wept the whole time. It was awful, and trying to be strong for the family and strong for Geoff, I mean it sounds so

psycho-dramatic but I went to see my doctor and the first pill I took— the very next morning—I thought, I’m me again. Within a week I was

back cooking decent meals instead of lying about on the sofa during the day trying to get myself together. It really made a difference. It’s

amazing the way our brain deals with things isn’t it. I look back now

and it feels like it happened to somebody else. But everybody should

take that help if they need it. It certainly helped us as a family. That and

the community, it was really amazing the way it came together. I think

that’s the other thing that really kept us going. We’ve changed too. We look out for each other more. These days we try to have dinner at the

9

table as a family, something we didn’t always do. We try to make sure we connect with each other and talk about the day. What was the best

part of your day, the worst part, the funniest and so on, just keeping it all together.

My parents still live in the same home that I grew up in. It’s an all-

original 1960’s place in Papanui and not too badly damaged. Parts of it will need to be taken to pieces, work done on it, but my father is in his

eighties and he’s said he’d like to be dead before they do anything to

it. He was a rubber worker at Firestone and my mother was a teacher.

I went to Waimairi School first off and then to Heaton Intermediate.

When it came time for me to go to high school my parents went to an open night at Girls High. There, it seems, it was intimated that if your

daughter went there she’d marry well. My daughter, said my mother, is not marriage fodder, so I ended up at Papanui. It was really horrible

because I didn’t know anybody. I went from Heaton where you got a bit of a hard time cause your dads a rubber worker, then you went to Papanui and it was, oh, you speak posh.

I went to work in the book trade, first for a bookshop then with

Collins Publishers. I moved to Wellington and that was great. Pre 1987, lots of money around and everybody’s buying books. Selling beautiful books to beautiful bookshops. Nothing like that now

obviously. I moved back in late 89 and I got a job working for School Supplies and that’s how I met Geoff, in a school. We were married

within a year and this was our first house. Our starter home. It’s not

a big house but full sun and solid materials, to my mind she’s lovely.

We’ve done the whole thing here. Children at play centre, Wainoni

10

Playcentre. Shirley Primary. Shirley Intermediate. So this is it, this is our community and Christchurch is our town.

What’s really weird for us is to be told we are green-blue. The place

is starting to empty out around us because we’re on the cusp of the red zone. Right across the road from us you’re starting to hear the noise of

the houses being demolished. I went for a walk the other Friday. That really cold wet Friday we had and I thought I’d go for a walk to clear

my head. Well that was stupid, I came home really sad, I hadn’t realised.

I went around by the river, past all my old haunts, past the houses that we always wanted to live in. It was a game we’d play, choosing the

house we were going to live in. We used to go along and look into them, I really like that one, or look at that garden sort of thing. And now they are being—or have been—demolished. Where the houses once were there is now tall grass. Already nature is filling the vacuum.

What gets me the most is the uncertainty, that we have no idea

really of what’s going to happen. I’m going to throttle the next person

who says to me, ‘Oh yes, but you’re going to have such a beautiful river outlook.’ They have no understanding of the process. What we

are desperate for is clarity. Between the insurance companies, EQC and CERA, it’s like we’re just stuck. We don’t have a voice. We need

someone that can stand up and say look, this is what’s happening. This

is the reality. It is going to take years. We can’t fix it overnight. We are working on the houses that we can work on; we’re doing the best

that we can. Please bear with us. Of course I’d rather they got it sorted properly, and got the foundations we will need right. I just want more

openness. It’s about being treated with respect. I’d be happy with that

11

and I think, talking with our friends and neighbours, they’d be happy

with that also. Right now, I feel like we’re being screwed, that we are

not going to come out with what we want and we’re just going to have to accept it. Tough, that’s how it’s going to be.

But hey, we’re safe. Our kids are healthy. The biggest change

is the way we now see at our life. When you take a good look you

see those things you thought were important, aren’t always so. Your focus changes—people—that’s what we’ve all said, people are more

important than things. We lost heaps of stuff but I’ve gone back to op

shopping at places like SaveMart and the Eco Shed. We’ve managed to do things like restock the kitchen; we don’t care that things doesn’t match anymore.

There has been the frustration of having your life changed for you.

We have come to expect, especially living in a western country, that

we’re the ones who get to decide what we do. Choose the direction we

want to head in. Whereas now we have to deal with the whole limbo

thing, can’t go forward, can’t go back. We find ourselves just sitting there, no longer any semblance of control and that’s a different mindset

altogether. Being able to deal with that, let it go, or just put it in a box

and don’t worry about it, yeah, that’s going to be a new skill for many of us.

12