Earthquakes, Rosary Beads and Chilling in My Panties

In the early morning hours of July 6, a 5.8 magnitude earthquake startled many people out of their sleep across western Montana. It was the strongest quake to rock the state in 20 years and was felt upwards of 500 miles away from the epicenter.

Where was I during this eventful occurrence? Well, to put it bluntly…..I was chilling in my driveway in my panties. 

At approximately 12:30 a.m. when the big tremors began, I was dead asleep in my bed. After jolting awake, I flipped out of bed and went running out into the kitchen. The house and everything around me was shaking with a furiousness I had never felt before in my life. With my husband working out of town, I was completely alone in our house and was utterly terrified. It was one of those moments that’s so shocking you think it must be a dream at first. But then you realize it’s the real deal and flashbacks of every disaster movie you’ve ever seen flood your mind.  

I have vague memories from elementary school of cowering under my desk during our annual earthquake drills. It was pounded into all of us that if and when a quake ever struck we were to get underneath something sturdy or wedge ourselves in a door frame. But I neglected any of these protocols that night. 

My first instinct after running into the kitchen and realizing my whole world was shaking was to run outside. I made it as far as the door into the garage when I realized that the only thing I was wearing was a pair of underwear. That’s right. No bra, no baggy sleep shirt…just a pair of panties.

Since temperatures had been in the high 90s every day for weeks and we didn’t have air conditioning, sleeping with practically nothing on was the only way I could get comfortable. Just as I was about to dash out the door, I remembered my minimalist evening attire and paused. I knew there was a chance there might be other people outside too so I figured I’d better throw on at least a shirt. After dashing back into my bedroom, I grabbed my cell phone and ripped a zip up sweatshirt off the hanger in my closet. 

By the time I made it outside to our driveway the tremors had stopped. The trembling of my body, however, had not. As I stood there in my underwear and sweatshirt clutching my phone for dear life, I glanced down our darkened street to see if anyone else had come outside. But it turned out I was alone there as well. 

Suddenly from down the street to the south, I heard a loud rattling sound. I knew instantly it was an aftershock. The sound rolled swiftly toward me like a wave until I felt the ground underneath me shaking again. The tremor was not quite as large as the first time but was still enough to make me stumble sideways. After the first aftershock had rolled past me and the ground solidified again, my whole body began convulsing out of utter shock and fear. With my hands trembling, I lifted my phone up and dialed my husband’s number. He was in West Yellowstone at the time working on the airport. With the frequent seismic activity in Yellowstone and jokes about it being the “super volcano” I feared that the quake had originated there and I was only feeling the residual tremors from it. I knew my husband was a heavy sleeper but after three tries of calling him with no answer, my heart rate grew exponentially. I tried him at his work cell number instead and finally I heard a muffled voice answer. 

“Andy, are you ok?” I shouted into the phone.

“Yes,” he answered groggily.

“There was an earthquake here,” I said. “Did you feel it too? Are you ok?”

“No. And I’m fine,” he said.

“Ok well I just wanted to make sure you were ok,” I said sighing. 

I knew he was exhausted from work and had to get up in a few hours but I needed him to wake up and be as freaked out about what was happening as me. I mean what if the really big earthquake was still coming? What if our whole house collapsed right into the ground? But he was just too tired to even fully register what I was telling him.  

“Ok well I’ll let you go back to sleep I guess,” I said rolling my eyes.

I’ll admit I was irritated but hearing the sound of his voice and knowing he was alright was all that really mattered to me. After hanging up with Andy, I called my parents next. My mom answered the phone and quickly asked if I was alright. In the middle of assuring her I was ok, my dad picked up the phone. He also asked if I was ok. He told me he was going to walk outside and inspect their house and would call me back in a few minutes.

In the meantime, I decided to go back inside. I went into my bedroom and pulled the box containing my rosary beads out from my nightstand. For whatever reason, I felt compelled to pray a rosary in that moment. 

Having only joined the Catholic Church three years earlier, praying the rosary was still new to me and I couldn’t exactly remember all the parts. After frantically digging through the drawer, I pulled out my handout on how to pray the rosary. Clutching the beads in my hand I went and stood in my kitchen, closed my eyes, and began to lift up my prayers to God and his ever patient mother, Mary.  

In the middle of praying a rosary, my dad called me again.

“Do you want me to come and get you?” he asked.

In my mind, I wanted to tell him yes. But then I thought back to all of the disaster movies I’ve seen and how it’s always the parent who goes to rescue the kid but then doesn’t make it.

“I can drive myself over,” I answered. 

Being an extremely paranoid and anxious person, I couldn’t bring myself to leave the house without taking a few valuable possessions with me. I grabbed a tote bag out of the closet and quickly dumped in my jewelry box with my wedding rings, my external hardrive with all my photos, the bible I received the night I was baptized, and my rosary beads. In that moment, those items were the most valuable things in the world to me. 

I went back out to the garage…this time with pants on….and got in my car to leave. My parents only live about five minutes away but it felt like it took an eternity to get there. I was terrified another quake would strike while I was driving and just prayed that a huge crevice didn’t open up in the earth and swallow me. 

After arriving at my parent’s house, the three of us sat in the living room staring at each other for a while and discussed our reactions to when the quake first struck. Eventually my mom went into her bedroom to try and get some sleep. But I was way too anxious to even think about sleeping.

My dad was reclined back in his recliner watching TV so I curled up on the couch with a blanket and watched with him. Eventually he fell asleep too. I, on the other hand, persisted in trying to calm my heart rate by watching The Great Outdoors and Sex and the City. Sometime around 3 a.m. sleep finally overtook my nerves and delivered a few hours of peace. I woke around 6:30 a.m. and drove home to get ready for work. 

The earthquake on July 6 was nothing compared to what it could have been. No damage, structurally or bodily, was done. Some people slept right through it and others spent the day after laughing about it. But the fact is that the potential for a truly large quake is always there. My eyes were opened that night to the true and sometimes terrifying power of our planet. And in those catastrophic moments, we are all rendered completely helpless. 

Looking back, me running outside in my underwear during an earthquake was probably a terrible idea. But I was grateful that in a moment of such great fear and uncertainty, I did the best thing I possibly could do. I submitted myself to God’s plan and good graces and hoped he would carry me through. Even when choosing a few select items to flee my house with, I barely thought about it before choosing my bible and rosary beads. It is good to know how deeply rooted in my heart my faith is and that even in the worst moments of my life I turn to God to be reminded to “be not afraid."