Echoes of the Day

We are getting well into the swing of our new post quake lives here but then something catches you out.
I was driving through Sydenham the other day, because it was the quickest way to get to where I needed to go. I hadn't been down that part of Colombo Street for some time. I have shopped on and off in Sydenham over the past thirteen years so I had a good handle on what it used to look like. It was not somewhere I thought of as pretty. In many places it was quite run down and a little icky - it needed a bit of a decluttering and a clean up.
Now when you drive up Colombo Street between Brougham and Moorhouse - much is gone. It is about four blocks and each block on one side of the road or the other, the majority of the block is just empty space - nothing there at all. I crossed the intersection of Sandyford and Byron Streets and three of the four corners were blank, demolished spaces. I nearly cried. I was surprised at my reaction but it just seemed so sad that history and little businesses had been totally erased.
On Tuesday this week at 12:40 ish there was a sizable aftershock south west of the city. I didn't feel it at all as I was in the car. It was quite close to Lucy's temporary new school location. It was a Tuesday again and at a similar time of day - lunchtime and to her, it started in just the same way as the big one on February 22nd. She cried. I didn't realise any of this until I went to pick her up after school. She was fine by then but it was the first thing she told me about. How she had made herself into a turtle and covered her head and listened to the shelves with rocks and shells rattling in the cabinet beside her. That is the weird thing with these aftershocks they are so psychological. For me it was as if nothing had happened that day but for her she was back with some of those scary feelings from February.
I can easily tell people our story of February 22nd and what happened but I don't revisit the feelings and emotions. Sometimes I see them as if through a door crack and I don't want to get any closer to them - they are something of the past and even now almost beyond my comprehension.