You Wake One Morning And Reality Has Turned Upside Down – Shane Kennington

You Wake One Morning And Reality Has Turned Upside Down Shane Kennington

And Kindness Lay All About

Stories from the Christchurch Earthquakes

Š

Glenn Busch

Shane Kennington

It’s strange. That first one in the middle of the night… the noise, I remember the noise. It was all quite surreal really. I remember us running through the house screaming out to each other. I remember

the family huddling in the hallway at one point trying to protect ourselves and comfort each other. It’s pitch black and you want it to

stop. You’re wondering when it’s going to stop and what will happen next. But then in another way it’s so quick, somehow you don’t have time to be scared.

It’s after, thinking about what has happened, what could potentially

have happened, and what is possibly to come, I suppose that’s when it

scares you. You sit there in the middle of the night with the aftershocks coming and no power, no water, just huddled together in front of the

fire for the comfort, and the light, and the kids dozing when they can.

Like every family we dealt with it the best we could. That night… yeah, that night I think we did quite well.

That was the first, that was then, and nobody knew what was going

to happen did they. Now we’ve had so many and I think with the ones

that came later there was more fear, especially with the big ones. Well

because you knew what was happening. You knew then what could

happen. The sound—you hear the noise starting, the jolting, and you get that shiver down your spine, your hearts starts racing, the kids

1

under the table crying and screaming, all of that which I don’t think was part of the first one. At least, not as much.

The big one in February, that was different. My wife and I and

the children were in different places. Trying to get to the kids was chaotic. Their mother had a near miss in a warehouse we had at the

time. She moved just in time as the pallet racking collapsed. She could

easily have been killed. At school when it came the kids were rolled up like balls in the playground watching the liquefaction come out of

the ground. It must have been quite terrifying. The school is only five minutes away but that day it took me nearly half an hour to get to

them. As soon as it happened I was in the truck and on my way but it was carnage, absolute carnage. The aftershocks going off… it was scary for the kids and it does affect them but I’m proud of the way they have handled it. They will cry, and they’ll tell you they’re scared, and like

most kids they’ve been affected by it all, but they’re pretty amazing

really. They don’t lose the plot; they don’t run around like chooks with their head chopped off.

But yes, things but have changed. In many ways our life here has

changed utterly. The stress on individuals, on families… people just can’t tolerate it. People are trying to work through the pressure, but

for many their lives are falling to pieces. I suppose I’m no exception.

You’re trying to forge a life for yourself, for your family, but something

like this can completely destroy it. It’s like you wake up one morning to find your reality has turned completely upside down.

We had two businesses before all this happened. We sold one after

the first earthquake and now I’m struggling with what is left. I’m talking

2

here about a city that has undergone a catastrophic change. I mean not only the earthquake, we were in a period of recession even before

that. I make model sailplanes and a lot of my work went to overseas customers. When the recession hit, the market dried up. We had to

diversify and try to focus on our local market. Then the earthquakes

hit and together, as for a lot of people, it added up to livelihoods being lost. All sorts of people have lost both their jobs and their homes and

that means things like the kids losing their friends at school too. So

yeah, like a lot of other businesses, you find yourself struggling to make a living. These are not normal times. If people have an income they are

careful with it. They tend not to venture out. Well, where do you go?

Large parts of this city have been destroyed and so have a lot of other things with it.

Our own home is badly damaged and they have placed us in what

they are calling the orange zone. Basically, it means no one can tell

you what will happen with it. Whether we’ll be able to stay or have to leave. Nobody has any idea at this point. Communication has been

shocking. The infrastructure all around us was also down and for a long while walking outside was like walking into a war zone. I remember

when we had no toilet, no power, no phone, no water—we hadn’t had

a shower in a week. After a few days our food began to run out and we had to drive across town to Northlands. To the mall there. It was like we’d stepped into a different world. It really affected you. Here were people getting haircuts and manicures and we hadn’t showered in a

week. It was crazy. In one way everybody is affected, in another way, it was a city divided.

3

That’s the sort of pressure that gets to people—it gets to you. It got

to us. Not long after the earthquake my wife left. That has been the hardest thing. It happened one night, completely out of the blue, at

least for me. I had no idea. Obviously, a whole lot of factors come into

it but she has told me that since the earthquakes she has seen her life differently.

Predictability is something that’s always been important to me

because I suffer from depression. Have done so for as long as I can remember. When my wife first left I thought I was dealing with it quite well, but more recently I’ve had to get some help. I’m taking medication now and that is helping a great deal.

I suppose the other major thing weighing heavily on me is whether

or not we are going to lose the house, our home. My wife has moved

on but I don’t want to be booted out of here. This is what the kids

and I call home, our little bit of paradise. We bought it ten years ago and it was a wreck. Looking back at the photos I don’t know what we were thinking. The house we had previously was a brand-spanking new townhouse, two storeys, absolutely pristine, and then we bought this

place. Why, who knows. Mad. It was just ridiculous. But over the last ten years we have brought up our children here, fixed it up, we’ve made

additions, our heart and soul has gone into this place. Our pets are

buried here. Yeah, I know, people move around left right and centre but

I’ve been brought up to settle, to put down roots and provide a home, a family home. It doesn’t have to be a mansion; four walls and a roof

is okay with me. It’s what the family brings to it, the memories and everything, that’s what’s important.

4

To lose all that, our lovely little four-bedroom home up a quiet

driveway… my children have played and grown here… that would be so hard. With what we would get for the place I’d never be able to have the same again for my kids. To the Government it’s just part of a

larger decision that they have to make. To the insurance companies it’s how much can they get away with. To be honest, there are times when I sit here and feel completely abandoned. I’m just one little human

being with one broken house and one horribly affected family. All the

responsibility is on me to take care of it. To make sure the insurance company and EQC are giving us what we deserve, that everything is

being done properly. And as lot of people can tell you, that’s tough.

And if I want help, a lawyer or whatever, I will have to pay for it. That has to come out of my pocket. And that’s all on top of making sure that

my children are looked after properly, trying to get on top of the parts

of the business that my wife used to manage, trying to keep enough money trickling in just to make sure we have groceries every week.

This is where you realise how important friends are. The struggle

to get up in the morning, to motivate myself enough to get to work, to reply to customers emails. The struggle to keep the house clean and

tidy, to mow the lawns, even remembering to take out the bins—with depression it’s a daily struggle. It really is. I try to take it one hour at a

time. I suppose the silver lining in all this is that my mother and I have been brought back together again. Our relationship has been strained over the years, but this has brought us back together. We have become very close once more. She is an amazing mother and I’m fortunate to have her there for me. There are other moments, like when a friend’s

5

wife does some baking for us—to know someone is thinking of you

like that—it’s just lovely. Yeah, my mother and a couple of good friends, they are the glue, they hold me together.

I grew up in this city, I’ve lived all my life in this same area. Went to

Shirley Primary School, Shirley Intermediate and Shirley Boys High.

It was never easy. What with the depression and a few other learning disabilities, dyslexia and all that—I’ve become very aware in my life that

I’m not destined to be given any sort of hand-outs. Everything, in one way or another has been a struggle. There’s been no Lotto win here. But I’m determined to keep on fighting, keep on making it happen. I don’t

want to let depression rule my life. It’s important to find something

positive out of this whole experience. Certainly, I think the kids and I have become a lot closer. The trust they have in me and the love we

feel, that has to be seen as very positive. I’m so proud of the way they are handling themselves at such a young age. I would just love to see some progress for their sake. There are great arguments going on about

the big things, the Cathedral and so on. Are they going to rebuild it or not, but what about the thousands of people like us? Three little kids

and me. When will they tell us about rebuilding our home? Our lives?

There’s quite a number of people who feel trapped. Stuck here in

some sort of limbo. I know what that feels like. Everything I have, all my money, my place of work, my children’s lives, it’s all tied up in this home. A lot of people have walked away from this town, from everything, and they will have their reasons, it’s not for me to knock

them. But I’m a proud Cantabrian and if I left, I feel I would be

abandoning my home. I want to see Christchurch rise up from the

6

ashes and become the city of the future it deserves to be. I don’t want to

be one of those people who come back when it’s all done and dusted. I want to be part of it and to feel proud of that. When I’m old and crusty I want to be able to look back and say I contributed to this. I lived through it. I did not abandon my city.

7