Here we are in the final stretch of 2020—the year the new millennium collapsed into chaos. It had been just enough time to think that we were cruising along towards a better world, so maybe we needed a pandemic to jolt us back into reality.
An invisible menace pushed us into our homes to stare at the flaws up close, and broke our social routines in a way we never imagined would be possible. Relationships waned or disintegrated entirely. Parents realised what it was like to live with themselves as their progeny exhibited all the best and worst traits that genetics installed.
What have we learned? Who knows!
I’m a mother of littles who works online and is literally fighting lantana and blackjacks to establish a garden in a bushy new dwelling. As a pregnant introvert, I was excited at the prospect of being confined to my farmhouse for a few weeks, even months. Then, as a new mother of two, I felt less enthusiastic.
I began to notice I was growing more resentful towards old Cyril with his hilarious face-mask troubles and constant updates about how our country is NOT free (of sickness nor corruption). SAA was bailed out for the umpteenth time while people were losing jobs (and dying of hunger instead of COVID), and local businesses were already under strain.
I have often wondered whether sneaking in a playdate for my lonely three-year-old with one of his little friends would be worth the risk of catching a bug. I wasn’t brave enough to venture into the possibility of being cut off from my breastfeeding baby, though.
How would it feel to have one of our two responsible adults at home unable to work or confined to hospital while there were two small children under our care?
What were the single mothers doing with their children who weren’t at school for months on end? How were the grannies looking after seven grandchildren, to feed, clothe, and care for those young souls while education systems failed?
Leisure-seekers were being arrested as corrupt officials shrank into the background and COVID millions disappeared as cunningly as the Bushiris.
For those without homes to retreat to, or savings to keep the groceries flowing, life continued as it always has (only with added pressure and scarcer cash). Anger rose, emotions exploded, and loneliness crept in from somewhere under my books, banana bread, and Karen memes.
Yes, I’m privileged and white. I still have a source of income (sort of), but it was immensely frustrating watching life go on as normal in the informal settlements down the road while I was cut off from friends and family and relying on Spar deliveries (Harbourview Spar, you have been amazing for us out-of-towners! Thank you.)
Inequality was exposed in a giant wave of growing unrest in South Africa (the red-splashed looters protesting about hair while destroying the local economy didn’t help my mood much). After a while, I stopped reading the COVID-19 daily updates or trying to grapple with the figures. I didn’t care about ‘the second wave’ and I wanted to go to the beach or the mall or the coffee shop without a bottle of sanitiser.
Still, I stayed home. I’m an educated parent who wouldn’t be able to justify placing my family at risk or disobeying laws made to protect me (even if I think they’re stupid). Maybe I’m a coward?
I know people who have contracted COVID this year and have recovered (some still battling with long-term effects, others feeling great). I don’t know anyone who has died of it yet.
We lost my amazing grandmother after months of not being allowed to visit her while her mental state deteriorated. Her memory was far enough gone to not even remember us in her last week of life—can we blame that partly on COVID-19’s relentless isolation of the elderly who so badly need that contact to stay current?
How many thousands of grandparents are sitting alone, confined to their rooms or retirement villages? They’re desperately trying to work out how WhatsApp works so they can at least see their loved ones on ‘The Google.’ Of course, that is only if they’re resilient enough to navigate the Eishkom blackouts, water shortages, and fibre issues that seem to have gained traction in the year of the plague.
You know what? It’s going to be okay.
South Africans are tough, and this is not the first pandemic, nor the worst time in history. We will hug again. We will laugh together over a braai and a beer again, watching the swallows diving and flitting around for a last meal at sunset.
If you have a job, you’re okay. If you don’t, you are being given a rare opportunity to re-evaluate your life and make what you will of it.
If you have children and grandchildren, you are blessed beyond measure. Savour the time that’s left when we are “forced” to be closer to those we claim to love. When life resumes its frantic pace, you might wish for those hours with ‘nothing to do’ together.
Think about the world, about climate change, sports and social movements. How does it measure up against what truly matters to you? What have you valued the most in the crisis we are living through in 2020 while our country bares its ugly side?
You can change your life as COVID-19 changes the way we do school, shopping, handshakes, and leisure. You can choose to do better, to think of the environment, to care for others, and to see good in the struggle.
Humanity was made to appreciate beauty, and to live each day to its fullest potential. The world might all have to send the pandemic a thank you card by the time we realise that it was exactly what we needed to move forward in strength and love.
South Africa has always been a place where the flowers defy the weeds and the rains fall hard. Keep smiling, the end of COVID-19 is coming, now now.
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