contents - Gallatin School of Individualized Study - New York ...

éginald louis-jacquesréginald louis-JACQUES Persevering142Thirty-Five SecondsThat Changed My Lifeistill remember that day like it was yesterday! It was a beautiful, sunny day.After a hard day at the National Credit Bank, where I worked as an analystin telecommunications, I decided to go home at 4:30 p.m. to join my young son.At 4:53 p.m. I arrived at the entrance to the dead-end street where I lived. I waswaiting for two cars to move so I could turn, when there was a deafening noise.At first I thought it was a large truck whose brakes had failed. Then I realizedit was an earthquake, the worst thing that Haitians feared!I was next to a brand-new hospital at least six floors high, and beforemy eyes it collapsed on—I do not know how many—patients, visitors, staffand passersby in the street. I moved the car two or three meters, and a wallfell on the car behind me, exactly where I had been. I quickly got out of the carand stayed in the middle of the street while the earth continued to shake undermy feet. After a few seconds, the shaking stopped. Two minutes after the firstshock, another was felt, then every three to five minutes during the next twohours, and every 15 to 20 minutes throughout the night.I was a minute’s walk from my house, but it took me over an hour to getthere. I had to pass through the rubble, walk on roofs, defy death, and hear thecries of pain and despair of those who had lost their entire families, the grief ofthose who had seen the fruits of a lifetime destroyed in a few seconds, and thesighs and groans of those trapped beneath the rubble. The most painful wasto be forced to leave them to fly in search of my own family. When I arrived atwhat should have been called my home, I ceased to exist. It too had collapsedwith my wife and my 13-month-old son inside.At that time, I experienced the death of the soul and death in the soul. Iam told that I squatted on the ground, hitting it with a stick. I do not know howlong I stayed in this state. Finally, I heard a small voice calling from afar, like anecho from the other end of the world. A young cousin of my wife told me that