Every day, people around the world are impacted by life-changing events. At the age of nine, I experienced my first. A 7.2-magnitude earthquake forced my family to adjust to a new normal and rattled my whole world.
On New Year’s Eve 2009, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, my mother and I sat in our living room. I was nine years old. She was listening to prayer on the radio; I was reading a book. All of a sudden, we heard a rumble, and I felt the ground shake underneath me. It wasn’t longer than a second, but my mom also felt it and started to pray. “If there’s an earthquake tomorrow, that cabinet will crash,” she warned. I wondered if what she said was true. I went on reading.
The morning of January 12, 2010, my brother, stepsister, and I went to school as usual, came home, finished our homework, and ate dinner. After dinner, having no chores, I went out to the terrace behind our house to relax. At 5 p.m., the earth started to rumble, lightly at first, then more and more strongly. I remembered what my mother had said: “If there’s an earthquake tomorrow . . .”
I ran into the living room to see if the cabinet would crash. That decision almost cost me my life. Within seconds, the foundation of our house shook, the cement cracked, and it wasn’t just china that crashed all around me. The wall in the hallway crumbled above my head. I saw my mom and stepsister running. I tried to hold on to my mom’s dress, but my hand slipped. I was buried!
Terrified and sure I was about to die, I prayed and begged God to help me. I crouched under the fallen bricks like a frog frozen before taking a leap.
How long will it take for the ceiling to fall down? I wondered. Will the ground shake again? My mom and stepsister were both outside, yelling for help. I didn’t hear my little brother’s voice. He must still be inside the house.
“Jesse?” My voice was muffled. “Jesse?” I called out louder.
“Saradine? I’m here,” he answered, sounding smaller than his seven-year-old self.
“Are you hurt?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Are we going to die here?” I was pretty sure that we were, but he wasn’t crying and I didn’t want him to start.
“No, someone will come. Let’s pray so they come sooner.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s pray out loud . . .”
“Notre père qui es aux cieux, que ton nom soit sanctifié, que ton règne vienne, que ta volonté soit fait sûre La terre comme aux Cielle . . .” It was Psalm 23, the only prayer we knew by heart.
He stopped and I panicked. “Jesse? Jesse!”
“I’m here.”
“Why did you stop?”
“I forgot the rest.”
At that moment, I felt the pain of someone’s feet stepping on the debris on top of me. I cried out. Hearing my voice, the man backed up and called out my name. Another started to pull the blocks where my voice came from, relieving the weight on my back. He pulled me out. The whole world looked gray for the few moments that I stood still to get my balance. The man, I now realized, was one of my neighbors. He hurried me out of the building, my brother following. We were rescued!
We lost everything: our house, our furniture, our money. We lived in tents with our neighbors in fear that the next aftershock would be worse than the original. For five months, we ate, drank, slept, and healed together. We had survived. I missed a whole year of school. In 2011, at age ten, I came to America.
Today, I remember that day when every part of my life that was stable and familiar crumbled around me. I hear my mom’s voice: “If there’s an earthquake tomorrow . . .”
Six years ago, I spoke only Creole and French, having just arrived in New York City from Haiti. Prior to that move, I had lived a peaceful life; my only concerns were getting my homework done and what we’d have for dinner. If you had told me then that I would be here now, a part of this tomorrow, I’d have called you a liar. That is, if I understood you at all.
I’ve been granted the gift of a tomorrow.
When people say goodbye they often say “There’s always tomorrow.” Not always, I say.