Love, life and death in a time of Covid-19
I have waited a long time to write this
blog. I have waited to see what the impact would bring, what the world would
tell me and to contemplate the devastation.
Because, dear reader, this is all
devastating.
To be honest, I didn’t feel worthy of
putting such magnitude into words. Words which, maybe, could be compared to my
grandparents talking about The Second World War and yet even then, I was hungry
for their knowledge because it all seemed so foreign and far removed from my
life that it bordered on the exotic, the fantasy, my own imagination.
Yet this is a war. A war against an enemy
that has no boundaries or discrimination. I was angered by many things, by the
Italian Government, by Boris Johnson telling the UK to prepare to lose loved
ones, by president Trump dismissing the virus as a Chinese disorder that will
be over by Easter, by world wide denial when WE in Italy are in the eye of the
storm. But anger does nothing. Anger only fuels a state of anxiety that I haven’t
felt for a long time. And I suppose I had good reason to feel anxious about
myself with stage three cancer and THAT IS THE THING.
When I was sick: I had me. I was worried
about me but I was in control of my own bubble and emotions. They spread to my
immediate family and friends and that was it. The world moved on. Oblivious. And
that was actually OK. I remember very clearly planning my own funeral: everyone
would be there, I would have friends reading about how I was in school, my
parents would read and my sister would cook for it. I wanted to be cremated in
my wedding dress and have half of my ashes in the UK, in Pirbright which I
loved and half of my ashes in Umbria, under my father in laws vines, so that every
time they harvested the wine, they could think of me. My funeral was going to
be a happy gathering with all the people I had known, loved and laughed with. Nothing
grand but nothing taken for granted.
As I write, over 960 people in Italy have
died in the last 24 hours. We have lost a generation of “Nonni” and brilliant
medical minds which is unfathomable. I weep for this country that I now call
Home. I had the ability to plan my own funeral yet had I been planning it now,
I’d have nothing. There are no funerals, no last rites, no ceremony, no
goodbyes, no services, no flowers, no graves. The Army in the north have been
called to carry away truck loads of coffins to be cremated to be, literally,
rid of the dead. Men and Women who are dying alone with only over worked and
understaffed nurses to witness their final moments. And it is something I never
thought I’d ever see in my lifetime and I hope I’ll never see again.
break, we will be too x
On the positive side, even if I will surely
be unemployed at the end of this, I am spending time AT HOME. Please, stay ay
home and enjoy your children. Take time to breathe. Do some yoga but don’t feel
guilty for not doing all-the-things-I –said-I –would-do… because this is a
weird time for the world.
LOVE. Love each other as much as you can. Check
on your friends and family, be creative. I have, once again, found myself challenged
by restriction and it is possible to do so much with so little. I respect the
health service and also people who are providing services like working in
supermarkets. BE KIND. Help each other. And I know that once this is over we
will be a better species. A better world. Nature is already thankful for the pause as pollution levels fall and that's what we really have to do. STOP.
