Flashback Friday: Earthquake, part II

My mind is on the fritz today and I can't think of anything to write at all. So I will follow up with my cousin's side of the earthquake story, told from my point of view of how I remember her telling it to me.

As I mentioned in the previous earthquake post, Mindy had just had her baby and we (my sister, my mom, and my friend Annik) were down in California visiting. We only stayed with Mindy for 1 night because her house is small for that much company. Instead we stayed with my aunt who lives about an hour south of my cousin (they aren't mother-daughter, by the way).

The morning the earthquake hit, everyone in my cousin's house was sound asleep. Finally.

They had had a rough night. Jim ended up sleeping in the living room on the La-Z Boy with Kali on his chest. Mindy ended up sleeping on two inches of king-size-bed space that Jacob, their then two-year-old, had grudgingly allowed her. No one in their house slept very well and they were all looking forward to sleeping in a great deal that Sunday morning.

But then the earthquake started, and being an hour north of where we were put them closer to the epicenter, so their shaking wasn't quite as mild as ours was. Instead of gently waking them, as it did me, it jolted Mindy and Jim awake.

Jim sprang up from the chair in the living room and ran down the hall to the bedroom where Mindy was wildly bouncing across the bed in pursuit of Jacob.

"Get in the doorway now!" Jim ordered his little family and Jacob and Mindy scrambled over to join Jim in the doorway.

That's when she realized their family was not entirely accounted for. She glowered at Jim.

"What did you do with my baby?!" she growled, as only a new mother can, while boring into him with his eyes.

All Jim could do in response was stammer. Up until that minute he had completely forgotten that he had been asleep with newborn Kali on his chest. Mindy remembered, however, and it was, from what I hear, a pretty tense wait until the earthquake was over.

When the shaking had stopped and they were able to move without being thrown around, Mindy and Jim rushed into the living room to search for Kali, who was no where to be seen. They found her, at last, sweetly sleeping on a pillow wedged between the chair, the couch, and the wall. She had flown off Jim's chest when he jumped up and landed there; she didn't have a scratch on her.

Considering they were in the middle of an earthquake and were hit fairly hard (Mindy showed us the crack that appeared in their ceiling due to the quaking) it was a good thing Kali landed where she did. Had anything fallen in her direction she would have been very well protected.

Still, I can't imagine the panic Mindy went through when she noticed Jim didn't have Kali...or the panic Jim felt when Mindy pointed it out to him. This story still makes me giggle.