A Terrible Sound: The Sound of The House Being Broken – Jackie Lilburne

A Terrible Sound The Sound of The House Being Broken Jackie Lilburne

And Kindness Lay All About

Stories from the Christchurch Earthquakes

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Glenn Busch

Jackie Lilburne

When we went to buy this house I said, ‘No.’ I didn’t like it. Didn’t

want it. But then, okay, it was the right size and we liked the area and somehow, slowly, it all just fell into place. Even a nice little Catholic school five minutes’ walk up the road. I hadn’t even realised

he was a Catholic until I said I’d marry him. I’m glad I did. He’s a good man—a good husband. We’ve made a family together—five kids now, so we’ve filled up all the bedrooms—and we made this

home together. Okay it wasn’t my dream home to start with but we

are, were, in the process of doing the kitchen and the conservatory and we had the pool out the back there. Dad had put a deck on for

us and we’d all sit out there under the tree with the kids, it was great.

We were getting it to where we wanted it to be. We’d worked hard as a family and now we were enjoying what we had made. Then

September happened, and in a flash our own little world, along with many others, disappeared. A great deal of what you know and care about disappears. Everything that only moments before felt safe and familiar, is suddenly gone. Dismantled. Taken away from you. And you can’t… I couldn’t think about it. The government starts using these terms. You know… we are orange but we could go red. Or

green. No, no, eventually we will go green. We have to. Must do.

Won’t we?

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Then you wait, and there’s so much to deal with it’s hard to think

about anything else until one night, a long time later, they announce

it. We are watching it on television, on the news, and I’m thinking worst-case scenario they’ll rebuild the house. Okay, it’ll be a bit of

push, but we can live with that. That’s what I’m thinking. Everybody else could see it, but not me. It’s like I’m blind until they say the word. Red. That was the decision. They said it was red and I’m in

shock. I just felt… it was like part of me had been ripped away, yeah, reached right in there and gutted me. I felt, this is what it must be like when someone important to you ceases to exist. Everybody else’s life carries on but your own life has stopped.

Maybe if they’d said at the start, right then and there, okay,

sorry but the school’s gone, church’s gone, your friends are gone, your house is gone, it would have been huge, and there would have been grief, but we would have stood together. Cut our losses at the

start and said okay kids, we are out of here, let’s go find a different adventure because this one isn’t working. Instead, everything has

been a long slow death. The grief has lingered, I think it’s what holds me to this place still. Part of me fantasises about another

earthquake, make the house fall over, prove to me it’s really screwed, and then we’ll go.

It was the noise at first. A terrible cracking sound. It was the

sound of the house being broken. I remember leaping out of bed

and standing in the doorway and Greg going past me to grab the kids and I’m thinking, God, that’s right I have to get the kids and

I went to the little ones at this end of the house. Greg went up the

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stairs to find the rest of them. One of our boys couldn’t find us in the dark, it was like a disaster movie, what happens next?

When the shaking stopped we went outside and the ground

had liquefied so that answered that question. It was all bubbling up

and we’re definitely still thinking disaster movie, what comes now, what’s the next thing… tidal wave. We did start thinking tsunami, and what we should do next. In the end we threw everybody in the

car. Kids, us, dog, cats, and, as it was cheap day at PAK’nSAVE the day before, we’re well stocked with groceries. In they go as well

and we’re off. How we actually got out I still don’t quite know. The bridge was closed, the road was flooded and in hindsight it was the

most dangerous thing to do, but yeah, we followed maybe 100 cars out of the city. Drove out as far as Oxford. That’s where we sat and waited until we heard the earthquake had been centred inland and we could come back home. Back through the war zone, back to the flooding and the liquefaction and the lean on the house.

To begin with I thought it was the drain. Many drains. But no, it

was the very ground itself. Liquefaction. It just bubbles out all grey and ghastly and everything is covered with water. It was so deep that

we put our gumboots on and still it came up over our knees. It was

horrible. Dragging the kids out in the dark when it first happened, getting them settled in the car, wading through this stuff, it was a nightmare. By the same token you have to hold it together because

of the kids, so you try to make a joke of it, keep everything calm.

It was our youngest—she was only four then—that got the biggest laugh. We were, she told us solemnly, running away from the salami.

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And that, of course, is the hardest thing. Knowing if we have done

right by our children, staying in Christchurch as we have… it’s the

worst part for me. I’m fine if everybody is here together, that’s okay, but when they go to school or off on trips, anything like that—it’s the

fear, the worry of not being able to get to them, bring them all back together so we can look after them.

It’s not just buildings you lose in an earthquake is it, it’s the people,

the friends, that is the worst part of it. Without friends we couldn’t have got through any of this. We lost our school in September—lost

our church and lost our school. Father Miles had died two weeks before so it all felt like a huge black hole. We ourselves were okay, but we were losing our community.

Our family had been at the school for ten years. We were part of

it, it was part of us. Losing it was gut wrenching. The day before it

closed we sat down there as we often did under the tree, the mothers, waiting for our kids, not knowing this would be the last day. The last time we would all be together like this. From then on the children

were bussed to the Cathedral and suddenly you didn’t see each other anymore.

There is a family who we are really close to. They have three children

who are the same age as our kids and they are all best friends. Julene’s been more like a sister to me than a friend. Neither of us has family here and so we’ve become very close. After February their house was

buggered and they moved to Nelson and that has been the biggest

loss, friends moving away. The day Julene told me—I knew they were going, but the day they actually told us—that was the pits.

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February did nobody any favours. I had a friend whose brother was

in the CTV building on the ground floor when it collapsed and when I

talk to him… it keeps things in perspective. I was home that day with Beccy, she hadn’t yet started school. When I felt it, I thought it was just like September. So okay, I know the drill, I know what to do this time

round, don’t panic. The street had flooded again but for some reason I still didn’t think it to be that big. Someone drove past and said I’ll go

and get your kids from school for you. Okay, thanks, that’s great. I’ll just stay here with Beccy. The two older boys are at St Bedes, Greg’s at work, my friend would get the other two boys from Cathedral College and I’ll be here with Beccy when all they come back. Fine.

There was no power again but I remembered how in September a

friend had turned on their car radio to hear what was happening, so let’s try that. The first thing I hear them say was that the Cathedral has collapsed. That people were trapped inside. Can you imagine hearing

that and suddenly becoming aware of the dust now rising above the city. It was not a good feeling.

Of course, I automatically assumed it was the Catholic Cathedral

and all I could see in my head was our two wee boys, Michael and Jem. I threw Beccy and the dog in the car and we took off. You couldn’t see

the street, it was all dirty water and we knew there were holes out there

so it was all a bit hairy. I told a policeman where to go on the way— lesson one, never get between a mother and her kids. Yeah, trying to

get to them and not knowing if they were okay, that was sickening.

Once I had them, once I knew they were okay, I calmed down a wee bit and we headed for St Bedes, to get the big boys, but there was no

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way through. No way I could find to get to them. In the end a very kind teacher brought them home about 6 o’clock that night.

So, we got everybody home but that was a horrible night. It never

seemed to stop. Waves of aftershocks rumbled through and kept going.

We were trying to think of all these things. The car only had a quarter of a tank of petrol in it. Greg and I had booked to go to Australia to see

his mum who was unwell. My mum was coming to stay with the kids.

Anyway, it kept rumbling on but we kind of thought we’d be okay. We knew this. It was familiar and by now we know the drill. Everybody

sleeps in the lounge, you get the torches out, and tomorrow I’ll take the kids to my mother in Nelson. I’ll fly back on mum’s ticket and we’ll go

to Australia. But this time the damage was so much worse. The house was worse, the flooding was worse; we couldn’t even get in and out the driveway. It was just foul.

The next day I tried to get out of Christchurch with quarter of

a tank of petrol. I’ll fill it up on the way. No chance, couldn’t get it.

Took me two hours to drive from here to Pages Road and back again.

The shakes kept coming and there were holes in the road and cars

everywhere trying to leave—and people weren’t so nice at that point.

Straight after it happens everybody’s going, ‘What can we do for you?’

But at this point it felt like everyone was getting out of here and don’t

get in my way. The following morning we drove out to Oxford where my cousin has a farm. He kindly filled us up with petrol and sent us

on our way. Thank God for farmers. And it was the Farmy Army who

came to clear our property—yay for the Farmy Army. It took thirty men a whole day to do it. They were amazing. They just turned up and

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luckily my friend Julene was there. She’s a very beautiful woman, I mean really stunning, so no doubt that’s how we came to have thirty men on the job. Well done girl.

June was crap again. We didn’t try to clean it up so much then. We

got a guy from down the road with his digger and then in December we got the liquefaction all over again. A lot of it is still there. What’s

the point now? Anyway, hard times are meant to make diamonds, aren’t they? As Greg said to me, it doesn’t matter so long as we’ve got each other and the kids and it’s made us… I mean we’ve had our

moments, but we’ve had to be closer as a family. As a couple we have had to support each other. We’ve got stronger friendships with our

neighbours, with people around us, and we’ve really felt the support of our friends from close and far away. I think for the kids, and especially for girls, it’s taught them they can be strong. They actually know now that they can do this. I remember saying to a friend’s little boy—a boy who had always been a bit terrified of earthquakes—‘I bet you didn’t

know you could be that brave.’ And he goes, ‘I was really brave.’ So, to some extent at least, our kids are going to be resilient. Certainly, as far

as earthquakes are concerned, they know the drill. They know exactly

what to do. What they know now is that if something bad happens later in life, they can cope. They can do it.

Of course, brave’s one thing, stress is another. And yes, we are more

stressed; even with everyday stuff I think we’ve all gone a bit nuts.

Like I can cope with this much, but don’t ask for anything else at the moment because, you know, we’re running on empty. If everything stays

the same, that’s okay. But add something to the mix… I don’t know…

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someone getting sick, that’s just one more stress and that can push you over the top. I have to say Greg and I are doing pretty well with our

timing. When one of us is shitty, the other one is not. We seem to do this kind of tag-team—okay it’s my day for having a meltdown, you

can have yours tomorrow. I mean if we both lose it at the same time, well, you know, we’re buggered.

It’s not just the personal stuff either. Like thousands of others in

Christchurch we’ve got those other monkeys on our back. The EQC

and the insurance battles. It’s soul-destroying stuff. I mean, originally, we thought we’d be stuck with the government valuation offer, well

that was pretty horrible. Then you’ve got people saying, oh well, you

should be grateful for what you get, which is a totally crap thing to say and don’t even start me on the council and the fiasco there. You’ve

got Bob Parker acting great, talking the talk and walking the walk, I can see why people loved him when they saw him in action, but did he actually do anything concrete? Then there was a letter in the paper

with someone saying, well, what did you expect? You live in the poorer

part of town. You should have tried harder. Get yourself up in the

world; move over to the better part of town where we’re all good and

sensible people. I actually wrote back to that one. Told him he could

stay on his side of the sandpit and play with his toys by himself as far as I was concerned. Definitely didn’t want to be part of his world. They

published it too and a number of people actually rung to say well done, but at the same time you have other people saying, well, you’re going

to get another house, what are you complaining about? I don’t know, maybe it’s just that Greg and I have got to the point where we’re tired,

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maybe that’s it, but we were talking the other day and there was a

sense of disappointment in the city. Saying it now, I know, it’s just silly.

It’s a senseless thing to say and totally irrational but you just feel like Christchurch has somehow let us down.

That said, our commitment was always to stay in Christchurch. My

choice would have been to stay here on this piece of land, stay in this

area with the school and all, but in hindsight I guess we are the lucky ones. We are the ones that at least now do have some sort of choice. Our

neighbours across the road are still orange and you look at them and think who wants to live in this crap any longer. The kids all coughing with the dust. Living in a house we can only use parts of for another five years. No, I guess we are lucky. Anyway, our boys are at College so

our commitment to them right at the start was, okay, we don’t know what else is going to happen, but we will keep you at St Bedes. As

we look around now though, house prices are just going through the

roof. And that’s part of the disillusionment as well, suddenly people are charging top dollar for damaged houses and you think, well, excuse me guys, you know…. be fair! But they are not, and what’s more they

are getting it. I looked at a house before Christmas which has just been put back on the market fifty thousand dollars higher than they wanted before Christmas. People are asking a hundred thousand dollars over GV for houses and you think, what’s happening to this place, what’s

happened to our town? If it was just me and the kids, we’d be gone.

But Greg’s started a new job, a new business, and as I said, the boys are at high school—so, it’s not just me is it. But here’s the real drag, we had reached that lovely point in our lives where it was time to have fun

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with the kids—to go camping, to do all those things you want to do with kids of their age. Guess what we do with them now instead? Ask them to get in the car and go and look at houses.

A while ago we actually found a house we tried to buy at Waimari

Beach. I wasn’t totally sure if we were doing the right thing but

I remember thinking there was a sense of peace out there and that everything would be okay. As it turned out it had a retaining wall that

was buggered and we couldn’t buy it. I had thought it would be okay, I had told myself we would buy it, but it wasn’t, and we didn’t. So, at

this point in time we just have to believe—choose to believe—that the

right place is there for us, that we will find it eventually and if we didn’t have that faith I don’t know how… it would just be despair.

We did get out of town for Christmas. Went up to stay with my

family and that was interesting. Putting a whole heap of kids and adults together is stressful enough anyway but yeah, everybody there said they

could notice in the kids, and, I guess in me as well, that we were a bit… what… more sensitive and they don’t kind of get it—if you are not

from Christchurch you don’t really get it. Sometimes I worry that we bore them with it actually. I was up there when the Christmas shakes happened. I was already there and I hadn’t… I had been physically unwell. When Greg text me and said there’d been another one I just

fell apart. Not being at home… there was a sort of separation. People

who know and those who don’t. I’m thinking I don’t want to be here; I want to be back there. Part of me was glad I wasn’t because I find them really scary, at the same time there is that sense of solidarity afterwards where everybody just pulls together and you’re with friends who know

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what it’s all about. Up there we had to get on with our Christmas shopping but inside I’m feeling like I had deserted everyone.

I don’t mean that in a nasty way. People on the whole, all over

the country, have been incredibly generous. We had some ladies up in Tauranga contact us and gave us some money to take the kids on holiday. That happened out of the blue. It was so good of them. Then

there were the guys out working on the road here and they were also going to fix our drains, so I asked them, ‘When you do that, could you

dig out my roses and my camellia for me, I want to save them for my mother-in-law.’

That was a bit cheeky, but they said, ‘Yeah, yeah, course, we can do

that.’

Then some machinery breaks down so they come to the door and

they say, ‘All right, we got some time, what can we do for you?’

It was a really hot day but still they came in and dug out the big

plants for me and then they said, ‘What else?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘you’ve got a bit of gravel out there I wouldn’t mind

pinching a bit of it.’

‘Bit a gravel, no worries,’ they say, ‘that’s fine.’

And away they went and brought us a good big load. And then they

compacted it down…. and that… it was just the most amazing gift.

Even when it flooded in this last lot of shakes we had, we could still walk in and out. I felt really humble they did that for us. They just did it. Kiwis. Good blokes.

And do you know what it made me realise, just how little we

think about others. Remember those poor people with leaky houses.

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I never really gave them a second thought and now I do. I think you poor buggers, we didn’t know, did we? They didn’t get the amount of

sympathy we have got. And I remembered reading something about up north after they had that flooding, they said that a year later the

domestic violence rates increased as people found out that they weren’t

going to get all their pay-outs. So now I’m thinking, how much or how little we do hear about anything? How is it we don’t know about this

or that? Hopefully we will have more empathy for other people now, for other situations. Be there for them when they need us to be there.

That people knew about us I guess is a reflection on how big

something has to be before we take notice. We’re probably old news now but all that help in the beginning, people turning up with shovels

and gumboots. It’s not even so much putting your hand in your pocket

as just turning up and saying I’m here, what can I do to help you out?

Like I say, we’re old news now but one thing I think perhaps

people would be shocked to hear about is families still having to use

portaloos in the street. No power is a pain, no running water is a drag, no toilet is the absolute pits. Greg dug a big hole down the back after September. It worked, but it wasn’t all that great to use, nearly as bad

as having to use the portaloos on the road. And that’s the worst thing

about a portaloo of course, it’s on the road, so everybody uses it. I’d like to know where the courier drivers and everybody else went before they were there. There were times when you felt like saying, get out of my toilet!

After the February shake our lovely friends from West Melton hired

a portaloo and put it at our back door. They had owned a hire business

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in Ashburton and because portaloos were very scarce after February they drove all the way to Ashburton to get one for us. For two months

we had our very own portaloo and it was a flushing one. I didn’t even

know there was such a thing. I’ll tell you what, we blessed them every day. Thank God for Su and Jon.

After June, we and our toilet were even on television for the Sunday

programme. Yes, a nice little story about emptying your chemical toilet and all that sort of rubbish. And as I was being filmed I was spilling

it down the side and Michael’s going, ‘Mum you’re spilling it, you’re spilling it.’ And I’m going ‘Well how the hell do I clean it up?’ And

then right in the middle of all this there’s this posh woman in her car, stopping and asking for directions and I’m thinking, lady, can you not see what I’m doing? Couldn’t even tell her where to go because the camera was rolling.

But here’s the other side of it. After the red zoning I rung them—

the TV—and asked if they were going to do a story on people being

screwed by the insurance companies? No, that was not going to happen.

They didn’t want to know. I’m thinking of the people who are left

behind you see. The ones who were going to fall through the cracks.

Who’s actually going to care… who’s actually going to be a voice for

them? I’m talking about old people who might not have been able to

afford insurance, or the people with negative equity in their home.

The young families, people we have met, who got their mortgages on two wages and then had babies. Suddenly they are down to one wage

and struggling. And do you know, when I mention this, when I talk to people about these sorts of problems, I hear things like, ‘Oh well, that’s

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their own fault. Why do they have so many kids? Why did they have

such a big mortgage and why do you live in such a shitty part of town?’

Bloody hell, do people really think like that?

On a brighter note, because the kids go to a catholic school that’s

where we have met most of our friends. Greg’s is the catholic, along with all the kids. I believe in God but I don’t know where I fit into

the scheme of things. Anyway, after we were red zoned a group of

them were having prayer meetings and they… I could feel…. okay, it’s just really bizarre, but I could feel their prayers and I could feel their strength behind us. You get a sense of people’s strength and their prayers around you and it, yeah… whether it was just that we needed it

so much at that time I’m not sure, but I had this sense that everything

would be okay. You could feel them there for us. The truth is if we didn’t have faith that things would work out, I don’t think I could get through this.

Getting the energy up, yeah, that’s getting harder, I don’t have the

stamina for it I once had. You know, since we went up to Nelson for

the big family Christmas we’ve done nothing else pretty much except look at houses. It saps you and some days you think… you just think

I don’t really want to be with people today. Even a simple thing like

walking into the supermarket could be a sort of shock. There’s everyone going about their everyday business, laughing and smiling and buying

food and stuff and in those early days it was like you had come from the war zone or something. You’d turn up in your filthy clothes and

your gumboots—you needed your gumboots just to get out—and it’s like you’re going down the road to another country. You are looking at

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all this and you’re thinking, hang on, excuse me, yeah, this isn’t fair you know. It just sucks.

We went to Mass on Sunday, it was a farewell to St Paul’s and that

was quite hard as well, I mean why do you have to farewell it, couldn’t

we just keep it going? Afterwards we both felt like we didn’t want to talk to people anymore—we didn’t want to be around anybody—we

don’t. Okay our close friends are great, they turn up and you want to be with them. We’ll talk about things and laugh about things, but when

it’s just day to day people—acquaintances—you feel like you don’t really care. I don’t really want to be bothered. I’ve got a friend down

the road and every week when he goes to pick up his pay the lady in the office says to him, how’s your house today? He said he feels like getting a big sticker and putting it on his shirt, don’t ask me about my house.

I don’t mean to sound snide or dismissive, I mean you know they

are just being nice. They’re asking, their being kind, but you think, well, what am I going to say, that we missed out on another house. What

can I say, you know? It’s just that lack of energy. Of course, there’s the

other me, the me I’d like to be—how I’m sure we’d all love to be—kind, loving, patient, and all of those other things I don’t think I am at the moment.

What will help is to get ourselves resettled. Get back to the lifestyle

we used to have. I want a home with enough space so that we’re not

falling over each other. A place where we can be safe and be that happy family together again. Doing things and having fun and getting

involved in a new community. Because I think this one’s gone. It’s

taken me a year to admit it, but yes, it’s gone. We will retain the good

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friendships that we have, Christchurch isn’t that big really, but yeah, it will be a new start.

I guess before the earthquakes our family life was just normal.

Probably pretty boring really. Kids, rugby, school, church. Family

coming to stay, going on holidays, the usual. In many ways we’ve struggled to hold onto that… doesn’t seem so boring now does it. You

wish for things to be the same but it’s not the same. The things we

once had are now what you might call, elusive. You can’t get hold of them as easily as you once did. But then I’ve got a friend who lost her

mum. All I have to do is think of that to know how much worse it could have been. I’ve still got both my parents, and yes, I know, at some

point in your life you have to walk that path, but not yet. So, you see, in comparison to something like that, well, this isn’t such a big deal. You don’t want to make a fuss.

What brings us together as a family is our love for each other. I

suppose because we’ve always been like that you take it for granted.

But when something like this happens you suddenly become that

much more aware. Like not letting the kids go to school without saying

goodbye. I have this fear now—it’s something I try not to let the kids know about—where I think about the people whose loved ones didn’t

come home that night. Didn’t walk back through the door at the end of

the day. What is their life like now… what are they feeling… so yeah, I’m more aware of having that kiss in the morning before the family

leave. Try to put those feelings into action. Show that closeness we have with one another. Maybe we all just needed a kick up the ass to

get on with life and stop taking the most important things for granted.

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What gets you through this stuff… if I was to ask that question…

it would have to be the family. The family and some close friends. I mean the kids have—the boys, the big boys in particular—have really

stepped up. I was taking them down to the bus one morning—I have to do that because the bus doesn’t come down here anymore—and I clipped the side of our car. It was no big deal but I stopped and Ben

was in the back and he just put his arms around me and said, “It’ll be

fine mum, it’s okay.’ Most of the time they are just typical boys but every now and then they will show that maturity, just come alongside

and say it’s going to be okay. They have been a real strength for us. And

friends. Three or four friends who have been like our rocks. They are the ones that keep saying you’ll be okay, we’ll get you through this and yeah, they have.

Would I wish that it had never happened? I don’t think in the real

world you can wish for such things. That people have more compassion

for the ones that are left behind, that is something I can wish for.

The un-obvious people like the old couple in Kaiapoi who took their own lives and you wonder how many people are feeling like that. How

many people have felt that total devastation? Perhaps if people had

a little more humanity, more awareness of what all this red tape and bureaucracy can do—that it can actually kill—we might be a little

more careful with each other. For ourselves—an easier path forward, to know where we are supposed to be, that would be good. We will stay in

Christchurch. This will be our life, but I wish I could see where exactly

we are going to be. I wish we could find the home we are looking for

and get our kids settled. Get over this and move on with the next part.

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Uncertainty can be a cruel thing. It seems every time we think we have found a house something happens to pull it away again. Close

but no cigar. You’d be forgiven for thinking that God’s got a bloody wicked sense of humour but this isn’t funny anymore. Just show me my house—let me move my family in and let us get on with it. Let us get

on with all those things we want to do with our kids. Hell, Ben’s fifteen

years old. In a few years time he could be leaving home, please let’s get

settled and have some fun before he goes. Please give us that time to be together as a family before it all moves on.

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