23 years ago, the Earth shook

Yesterday, 23 years ago and I still remember the feeling of the ground moving like jello under my feet. I had just finished breakfast and was getting my books ready for school when the Earthquake hit. Before I knew it, my father had me under the door frame of my sister’s bedroom (I was using that bedroom at the time). It probably was less than a minute, but as I stood there, looking at my sister’s hanging lamp balancing a whole 180 degrees, it seemed like hours. It stopped, we checked on each other (my mom had been downstairs at the time), my dad did a quick run through the house, only a few trinkets had fallen out of place. We left for school, just another normal day... Until we turned on the radio. The devastation was tremendous. Hospitals had crumbled, apartment buildings had crumbled, stations had crumbled... As we drove through the empty Coyoacan streets, we slowly realized it had not been “just another quake”. Not even the birds were making their usual racket.
My dad dropped me off at school, partly because he wasn’t sure what to do, partly because he knew he had to check on other people. Being at school that morning was bizarre. I still remember all the talk. Many had already been in the school building when the quake hit since some classes started at 7 a.m. It was oddly quiet, too, only the ring of the phones in the office could be heard now and then. Classes were really not happening and parents were trickling in to pick up their children as early as 9 a.m. It was taking time for people to realize the size of the tragedy. I don’t remember when was it my parents picked me up from school. I do remember our physics teacher, Mr. Dyer, going around the school (with some of us trailing him) quantifying the damages to the buildings. The Modern American School was built pretty well, just a few cracks, non of them structural. Then he left, he had been called by the President to lead the team that would check the buildings that were still standing and see if they were safe... He must have been really good at what he did, I was just 15 and did not know much.
I can’t remember if there was TV (electricity) when I got home, I do remember my mom was terrified, but showing a strong facade for me. She was worried the MultiFamiliar (Apartments) that some of her aunts live at had been damaged. Communications were not doing too good that day. And so many buildings were leveled.
For the next few days nothing was normal, it was like the whole city had gone into mourning. Solidarity, that was the first time I heard the word spoken so many times a day. Volunteers were digging, and opening their homes to strangers who had been left with nothing but their lives. Total strangers, social status forgotten, cheered and hugged each other every time a survivor was found amongst the rubble. Then hope started to fade... It was too long for anybody to have survived under the rubble, too many days had passed... and then first baby was unearthed. Under the tons of rubble of a hospital came the most amazing miracle of life: newborn babies alive, entombed for six days, but they were alive. I can still remember crying, I still cry when I remember those little babies, muddy, dirty and hungry, but alive. I remember one baby had survived suckling on his dead mother’s breast... I still remember the Swiss rescue dogs sniffing through the rubble.

And after the rescue efforts became recovery efforts, more SOLIDARITY happened. People say the biggest tragedies bring out the best in people, and it did in Mexico City, the biggest city in the World at the time.
And, then, what happened. Did we forget? Did the government forget? Were they too keen to cover up that most of the buildings that crumbled were government appointed projects?
It is terribly sad that so much life was lost, but incredibly wonderful that so many people discovered the importance of teaming together to make things better... I just wish it remained as more than a distant memory, a historic fact, something that happened “before my time”.
I lived through it, I still remember the feelings, the pain, the terror, the confusion, the solidarity.
I have never liked September.: Mexico City Earthquake, 9/11... All in my lifetime. I do not forget the feelings, the people, the value of working together, of community. I hope you don’t either.
For more on the '85 Mexico City Earthquake:
http://vivirlatino.com/2007/09/19/mexico-city-earthquake-22-years-later.php