Adendum to We'll Soldier On

Looking back at my earlier post today, I have to just add this:

I'm such a fake - I was trying to be all upbeat and positive about the future of Christchurch after the quake on Tuesday (and all the aftershocks which followed), but you know what?? I'm not really feeling upbeat at all.

Don't get me wrong - it is awesome that the clean-up has started already, and that the people of Christchurch are banding together. My aunt told me that her boss asked for a few volunteers to help clean up their factory (she works for Independent Fisheries in Woolston), and he got 120. Amazing. I've seen the photos of the Canterbury University students out there, digging up the liquefaction . . . totally amazing. And such a contrast from Haiti's tragedy a year ago (don't take offense, this is my PERSONAL opinion, okay), where they had help pouring in from all over the world, yet a year later, it hardly looks any different.

But still, in spite of all this progress towards cleaning up and soldiering on, I am totally bummed. Obviously, not on the scale of those who live in Christchurch and experienced the quake first hand, but I am truly devastated by the destruction of my most favourite city in the world. Technically, many might think I have no right to grieve, my family and friends are all alive and well. Houses can be replaced, yards can be cleaned up. But people cannot be replaced, and I haven't lost anybody.

Yet everytime I see the pictures on the news, the wasteland of what was Columbo Street, for example, I just want to cry. I can talk about it now, without my voice breaking, but holy crap, what a bloody disaster! I've only seen pictures and video, but I lived there for 8 years and I know what it's supposed to look like. For the rest of the world, yeah, its tragic and the destruction is horrible, but for me, and for others who call Christchurch home, it is just devastating.

And it breaks my heart.

I love Fort St. John too, in its own way, its a pretty special city - and my husband and children are here, but somehow, Christchurch - in spite of my reluctance to move there in 1985 - is closer to my heart. It is where my family is from, where my grandparents and mother are buried, it is full of beautiful gardens, architecture, steeped in history, and I have wished every day since this happened that it was all just a bad dream.

Unfortunately, its not a dream, and I'm hanging out here on the outer edge of this nightmare, wishing I could do something, grieving and feeling a bit like a doofus for doing so. After-all, I'm safe, my family and friends are all alive and uninjured . . . but I'm sitting up here, in the Frozen North, blubbering every time I see pictures of the rubble.

I'm totally bummed, but she'll be right. Eventually.