When Veronica saw the bags of food piled at the kitchen door she shrieked “Thank you, thank you” at Fiona, “if it wasn’t for Corona, I would hug you”.
“We can hug” Fiona replied, “we’re all in this together”.
Veronica squeezed her as tight and long as she could. The food was for the community down the road but, despite being a Zimbabwean with her own family struggling far off out of her own reach, it was as if we were feeding her own children.
There are many forms of isolation but surely hunger is the worst? It’s so ghastly, we tend to look the other way. Today I am struggling to find words. I think I’ve used up my daily quota. So I’m lending some from Arundhati Roy:
“The only dream worth having is to dream that you will live while you are alive, and die only when you are dead. To love, to be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and vulgar disparity of the life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget.”