To say we all lived and continue to live through such challenging times is an understatement. Being creatures who naturally crave contact with each other, lockdown brought to the fore mental health issues many of us were completely taken aback by. Feelings of isolation and uncertainty tested our sense of wellbeing and security in such unprecedented times.
“You don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone,” the saying goes. How true. “Thrown in at the deep end.” Again, how true. Without warning, parents became home schoolers, many unequipped for the task but nevertheless doing a sterling job, whilst keeping the wheels in motion in all aspects of caring for their families. Both financially and emotionally. Families were suddenly living in everyday close proximity, a situation they were so not used to. And having to adjust fast. Parents working from home. Children missing friends, play dates, school, seeing grandparents and family. Thank goodness for Zoom! I for one, was brought up short, when I heard a nine-year-old child ask, “What is happening to the world?” It saddened me that children should even be aware of such troubled times (and yet how could they not be) when at this time in their lives they needed to be carefree and worry free. Childhood is so short and precious.
And yet, there is a positive side. My own Dad lived by the mantra “Out of bad comes good.” I live by it too, and try to see problems as challenges, rather than problems.
We live in a neighbourhood where, normally it is fair to say, almost nobody passes the time of day with anyone else. Until lockdown we didn’t know most of our neighbours. And suddenly we did! Acts of kindness that make your heart sing. A note through the door from two little girls “Are you elderly, self-isolating or otherwise unable to get to the shops? We’re happy to help…we’re doing this because we want to help, obviously there is no charge”…
Our next-door neighbours, showing kindness and caring that is humbling. Our local supermarket putting into place a free weekly delivery of ten items of shopping. When I see in my shopping, a free gift of a white chocolate Easter egg, the box wrapped in a ribbon, I telephoned them to say thank you. “I love white chocolate!” “We just want to look after you,” they tell me. I cry.
“Reaching out”. A phrase that has crossed the ‘pond’ from the United States, as so often they do. It’s a beautiful phrase. My profound hope, is that kindness (my ethos as a children’s author) and caring, and “reaching out” will prevail. That COVID-19 has brought goodness to the world and ultimately healing.