I just learned of a friend’s father dying of the virus. Her Facebook post tells of dropping him off through a tented entrance at hospital and not having any further access to him. She now, in her own quarantine, has no access to her young adult children. I can’t imagine the anguish – not having access to the ones you love in times of shared suffering. That is perhaps the greatest tragedy of this virus, the way it manages to force us into distancing. It is in these moments that it is hard to keep the panic at bay. It is as if something just rolled a giant dice across the planet – life has become a bit of a gamble. It’s only been 4 days but I miss my youngest son so deeply. His vibrance brings me life. I was asked on radio today if I have any suggestions for how we can manage. I don’t know if I do, but I heard myself saying that it starts with accepting the situation we find ourselves in. From there on we will need a resilience we might never have thought we had. And, lastly, we will need to find some hope.
The nation sat glued to their screens at 19h30 this evening in anticipation of the Presidents next move. We haven’t been in the habit of placing hope in our leadership since the end of the 90’s. It is unlikely that the intervention models applied in Europe will work for us. It seems we might have cracked a deal with China. Who knows what the implications of that are but we can only hope that we will come up with a unique enough solution.
Sartre encouraged that we should not mistake disenchantment for truth.