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I’ve never been so proud to be a Christchurch girl

I left for my OE in March 2010. I had tearful goodbyes with family and friends yet didn’t give a second thought or a single goodbye to my beloved city as we drove that familiar route to the airport. Why would I? Christchurch had been there my whole life – in the background – a part of me.

I have not been back since but I have watched from England as everything I associate with home has been shaken to pieces. My parents’ apartment on Carlton Mill is soon to be demolished. I sit on Skype and watch them in an unfamiliar background, uncertain of the only life I know. They recently have made the decision to leave the city. To leave my home.

I cannot imagine what you have been through. I try but I still cannot comprehend the city in any way but the way I left it. I know the day I come home I will finally understand, but until then I struggle to put the images I see into the place I know so well.

For the city, I have felt nothing but immense pride and sorrow from too far away. But the way you have worked together and shown such courage has been so apparent to me and everyone who has watched helpless from a distance.

I’ve never been so proud to be a Christchurch girl. Arohanui. OLIVIA TULLY

Fulham, UK HENRY REDMOND

Forest Park

February 22, 2011, was just an ordinary old Tuesday, up to 12.51pm. Tuesdays have a particular feel about them and it was during the normal routines of that particular Tuesday the extraordinary struck.

Having the commemoration this year on awednesday hasn’t felt quite right, but next year it will be even worse – a Friday – if the strict date is adhered to. In fact, February 22 is not going to fall on a Tuesday again until 2022.

I’d like to see an annual commemoration on the last Tuesday in February, and perhaps name it ‘‘something Tuesday’’. DOUG SELLMAN

Ilam