I am writing this on Tuesday.
When it appears it will be a Wednesday - exactly a year from the day the lives of anyone connected to Christchurch changed forever.
For many the change has strangely been good. It has made them seek out their long lost bucket list, reacquainting themselves with old friends, making new friends. People from outside of Christchurch have been fantastic but must be tiring of the incessant media coverage! I have tried but it is almost impossible to explain to people outside of Christchurch what living through 10,000 aftershocks is like. The roads that drive you mad, the smell of the putrid estuary stained with sewerage. Watching people jump at the trucks going past and tear up as they try to laugh about last nights "5.6" that woke them at 3am. It sucks.
I thought about making an iPhone movie of the abandoned houses all around the rental where we are living, the cracks in the road, the overgrown gardens. The houses with backs broken just waiting to be put down. For some strange reason I want people to understand the powerlessness. How useless you feel when you lose the ability to protect your loved ones.
Enough - I didn't start to write this about earthquakes. More about loss. A sad event today, on Tuesday, reminded of a blogpost I wrote nearly two years ago... Reminded me of the way life can change in an instant and everything you thought was solid isn't. Lets not waste too much of it. We don't know if the kiss we give our wife, child or puppy will be the last. Lets not waste too much of it! That may have been our last Tuesday!
TUESDAY
A friend woke up on a Tuesday with a severe headache.
The next Tuesday he woke up in hospital after having a "grapefruit sized" tumour removed from his brain.
By the next Tuesday he knew he was riddled with cancer...
Our friend didn't wake up today - a Tuesday.
Bruce only lived to see about 2500 Tuesdays - he could have rightly expected to see another 1000 at least, maybe 2000... His loved ones and friends feel cheated. I have already had more than he can now - and I worry at how many I have wasted.
You hear stories like this all the time... Friends cut down in the prime of life...And then we return to our everyday lives and miss the lesson...
So now there is a reminder in my calendar every Tuesday - that simply says - "This is Tuesday." Maybe from time to time it will remind me of the important things in life. The things that would really matter if I woke up on a Tuesday with a severe headache.
posted by SWA
