cracks
(Trigger warning: this article - and my entire life, apparently - resembles Encanto so much that it may leave you singing
Pressure like a grip, grip, grip, and it won't let go, woah
Pressure like a tick, tick, tick 'til it's ready to blow, woah-oh-oh
Give it to your sister and never wonder
If the same pressure would've pulled you under
Who am I if I don't have what it takes?
No cracks, no breaks
No mistakes
No pressure.)
—
A few days after the earthquake (and its thousands of aftershocks), I mustered up the energy to start the cleaning process. In those first few days, I purposely chose not to go upstairs to assess the damage. We moved down into the basement to ride out the big shakes, and I just didn’t have the heart to see what our upstairs looked like.
Shattered dishes and picture frames. Broken vases and wisemen heads (it was December… we don’t always keep wisemen on our shelves). Dressers ripped out from their once-secure wall posts. Bathroom mirrors teetering behind the light fixtures. Our friends had even more damage than we did: entire shower doors shattered into a sea of broken. Every kitchen cabinet open and emptied to slivers and shards on the floor. It was a lot of cleanup. Even weeks and months later we were finding ourselves stepping on tiny pieces of broken glass. But eventually it all got put back in order.
The structure of the house became our next priority. Was it damaged? Would it hold up in another big quake? Were we even safe living in it still? We had an assessor come take a look at it. As he walked room to room, noticing cracks on every single wall, he pointed them out and said we were good as long as the cracks went up and down or side to side - those are just sheet rock cracks. It’s the diagonal ones you have to look out for - that means structural damage. Luckily, we couldn’t find any in our house.
In college I got my finger closed in a car door. I wore a splint for weeks, unable to move it at all. The wound closed up and the swelling went down. I was left with a knuckle scar to remind me of what happened.
But, as the doctor warned it would, the pain still creeps back up every once in a while. Nerve and joint and ligament damage. Structural damage.
We actually haven’t repaired the sheetrock cracks in our walls yet. It’s been over three years now. And they remain, sort of like scars, to remind us of the pain we experienced and healed from.
Something strange has started to happen over the years, though. Alongside the sheetrock cracks, we’ve found some diagonal cracks. At first it was just a couple - we thought maybe we didn’t notice them originally. But then a few more started to appear. Maybe the subsequent earthquakes were causing them. Maybe our house isn’t able to bear the weight it once could. Maybe we have structural damage after all?
Structural damage is dangerous because it can go unseen. It’s often hidden beneath the surface. Structural damage means your foundation isn’t strong enough to withstand the forces it once could. One more massive earthquake could lead to total collapse.
Trauma can come in any shape or size. We often think of the extremes, but trauma can be subtle, too. Trauma is more about our emotional response to a situation than it is about the extremity of the situation itself. We know a “big” traumatic event will almost always have lasting effects on a person. But something seemingly small, like being called stupid at school as a young child, can have those lasting traumatic effects also. Structural damage.
So what do we do about this kind of damage? Is it even possible to mend such deep damage? I don’t think there is one easy formula for healing structural damage. I wish there was. But every single person, every single heart, every single home is built differently. And damage can take on so many forms.
Our kids’ playhouse in the backyard caved in this winter - the roof couldn’t hold the amount of snow that piled onto it. The damage has been assessed and it’s been unanimously decided that the playhouse will be kindling for a bonfire this summer. Plans for an A-Frame playhouse are already underway. The new structure will be able to survive harsh winter snow and ice much better than the original play house .
The reality is, that sometimes a house is better off being torn down and rebuilt.
But not always. Structural damage can be repaired. And the structure can go on to live a thriving, strong, healthy life. Our earthquake-damaged house can be fixed. We can’t just paint over the cracks, though. We have to rip the walls apart, rebuild the weight-bearing structures, and then put them back together.
So, there isn’t one right answer. Both of those approaches can lead to beautiful, strong, capable homes. Have hope that no matter what type of structural damage you may have, there is a mending for you.
