Ordinarily, I love a good sing-song.
But I never made it to the end of You'll Never Walk Alone in the Octagon yesterday.
Building up a good head of vocal steam halfway through Liverpool's anthem of hope, I was ambushed into a tearful silence by the poignancy of Oscar Hammerstein's words "though your dreams be tossed and blown".
I should have seen it coming.
For the past week, I have monitored how my extended family in Christchurch have coped with this disaster.
All are safe and well. But the constant strain, the relentless reality, of living there in such trying conditions for more than a week now has slowly, and worryingly, crept into each phone call or email or text message.
In one of those emails yesterday, my sister Maree wrote of taking her dog for a morning walk and being struck by the eerie quietness of her neighbourhood, like "everyone had gone away".
Then she looked back towards Christchurch's broken and buckled centre and saw a rainbow arched across the skyline, which, she said - apologising for sounding "mushy" - made her appreciate that she was still alive and able see something so beautiful.
But, soon after, she was jolted back to reality by a series of aftershocks that tightened already stretched nerves.
I played those scenes, and many others, over in my head as I stood among the thousands gathered in the heart of Dunedin yesterday.
I looked around me, at a mass of red and black, and wondered if anyone there was a refugee from the streets of St Albans, where I had lived for nearly 20 years.
How did my old neighbourhood look now?Across the Octagon's main concourse, the New Edinburgh Quartet created a soulful ambience with a selection of sombre pieces by Bach and Mozart - annoyingly and intermittently muffled by the noisy idling of an empty bus.
The well-chosen words of local Maori leader Tahu Potiki and Mayor Dave Cull floated up into the leaves of the ageing plane trees, towards the flag hanging lifelessly at half-mast on the municipal chamber's clock tower and the twin spires of St Paul's Cathedral.
Images of Christchurch's shattered cathedral flashed into my mind. What if, what if ...
Then we stood and sang God Defend New Zealand ("hear our voices, we entreat").
A handful of red balloons were released and, heads bowed, we joined the rest of the country in a two-minute vigil, the silence occasionally broken by the mournful cries of seagulls, the innocent stirrings of children and a siren's wail in the far distance.
This sobering sound track led us into repeat verses of You'll Never Walk Alone and ended for me with a comforting and much appreciated hug from a passing friend.
Then, as we all dispersed in various directions, resuming our lives of normality and order, on a warm and windless autumn day, my thoughts turned again to Christchurch.
Heading back to work, I stopped long enough to dispatch a text northwards.
"Hi family. A really good turnout @ lunchtime rally in Octagon 4 u + yr city 2day. We shed sum tears, sent much luv + sang heartily in yr honour. It's the least we cd do."
Soon after, my sister-in-law Helen responded. "Held hands in circle with neighbours, tears in eyes, only shed when got your text."
Damn it.
