Silent tears

She said she'd only seen me cry 3 times.  Then she counted and it was 4.  Four times.  She'd only seen me cry four times.

That's what she told me, she told me she'd only seen me cry 4 times and I needed to stop.  That I needed to stop because I was scaring her and she was going to start crying too.  My daughter needed me to stop crying but I couldn't.  I just couldn't.

It was a mere 3 months after the earthquake, the 7.6 earthquake that had changed our lives and moved us out of our home of seven years.  I'd packed up everything, talked to builders, gotten quotes.  "I'll give you a quote for the insurance $110,000 for repairs but I think I could do it for about half that", I'd gotten other quotes "Don't fix the house lady, tear it down, you need a new house."  And I'd had engineers from the insurance company out twice.

See the thing is I'd expected more. I thought I'd gotten lucky.  Six weeks before the quake I bought earthquake insurance.  $150,000 if my house was totally destroyed.

It sure seemed totally destroyed to me.  $150,000 would get us a new house. I felt like I'd finally caught a break, I'd get $150,000 build a new house for $100,000, a tiny new house and spend the other $50,000 to start pulling me out of debt.

$50,000 would get the kid's school paid, would get the money I'd put on my dad's credit cards paid off, I'd get ahead for the first time since the recession hit.

I called, I waited, I walked the engineers through the house. 

When the earthquake hit I'd run, stood outside waiting for the house to fall down but it didn't. It just broke into different sections, each part of the house pulling away from the other parts, each part moving away from it's point of origin. And then I was pulled from my point of origin, forced to move until the house was repaired or replaced. Now here I was waiting for the news, how much would the insurance pay me?

$8000

They told me they would give me $8000.

I started to cry.  I couldn't stop.  My daughter kept pulling on my sleve.  "Stop crying mommy, stop crying, please stop crying."  The man in front of me looked embarrased for me, I was in a room full of people and I couldn't stop.

All the silent tears I'd been holding since the earthquake all needed to come out at the same time.  My home was destroyed, it's spine broken and they were offering me almost enough money to give it a manicure.