Scarlett O'Hara

It’s a year gone and I can still taste the dust. I close my eyes and the walls shake, I scream out in fright as the world comes crumbling down, I wait in fear to find out if I will die. I can feel the shaking inside me, even after it had stopped my body shook like jelly as I tried to get up. My flat mate came barging in to help me and he guided me through the rubble. My eyes filled with tears and I cried harder than I ever had before because I knew that this force of nature had torn down buildings and broken lives. I looked ahead to see the once standing identical flats had completely fell down, all apart from one. Peering at the glass that had crashed into pieces beside me I decided to call my mother, and without hesitation dialed the cell phone and wailed in terror to her the moment it connected. Somehow mom managed to calm me down and tell me to take it step by step. That’s all we could do.

I still struggle to comprehend what happened to me on February 22nd. I can still remember the journey to Hagley Park. As my flat mates and I got to a grassy bank on a main street, people were sitting around a radio listening to the DJ talk of the horror that had unfolded. He described the dead, ash ridden bodies being pulled out, seen easily amongst the rubble. I stopped to listen and then began to cry. I couldn’t believe how incredibly big this was, that I was a part of a tragedy where mothers, fathers, sons and daughters had lost someone who was previously living and breathing. I can imagine them wondering why. Why of all people was it my family member or friend?

A lump was in my throat as I saw the hoards of people looking dazed waiting for the giant tent to be pulled together at Hagley Park. I think when you are in a state of shock you lack the ability to feel emotion; you just exist to keep yourself from breaking down. I was covered from head to toe in liquefaction as I had slipped over on the way. It was the worst kind of mud; it soaked into all my belongings and caused houses to sink deep into the ground. I was very grateful to not have to sleep in the tent. A wonderful family in Dargaville took me and my flat mates in to sleep there and regain a sense of normality.

I’ll never get this moment in time out of my head. I’ll carry it to my grave. But the only positive was that I managed to get out alive and had a family ready to take the reins while I dealt with the trauma. I believe this event has shaped me, forced me to deal with my emotions and accept change. I am so much stronger that what I was, I managed to get out and create a life for myself. When I first arrived to Auckland I didn’t believe life would ever be better for me. I was stuck in a small town with no one for company. But through a friend I got into a workplace and pulled the pieces back together again.

Sorry for being a crap writer, I just needed to get that out.

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