WE’RE WAITING ON GOOD NEWS FROM DR TONY AND NPHET
Over 70s Kevin Mulligan finding challenges of seond lockdown difficult to navigate
When you get into our age bracket, the over 70’s, unfortunately you tend to know more dead than alive.
You read obituaries and realise that in the majority of cases the deceased are younger than you.
Ordinarily you wouldn’t entertain such depressing thoughts.
You would be thinking, age is only a number on a birth cert, no reason why I can’t get that cheque from Michael D. for he’s looking so well, and keeping himself ‘cocooned’ in Aras, that he’ll still be around to present the cheque.
COVID-19 has however changed not just our lives, but the way we over 70’s think.
Increasingly the words of Boris spoken at the start of the pandemic that ‘ many elderly people would go before their time’ seems to keep echoing round the brain.
Those awful statistics that are trundled out nightly on TV keep reminding us that the majority of the COVID related deaths have been in our age bracket.
Yet in the vast majority of cases we have done what we are told.
Our way of life, so precious, so cherished because we have so little left, has been changed, perhaps forever.
We can’t browse in a book shop.
Sit in a pub or restaurant, or have a haircut. They have even denied us a game of golf but in my case it has always been socially distanced golf, trudging behind playing partners who always seem to hit the ball further than me.
Even a brief respite of a meeting with friends huddled outside a coffee shop has become impossible because of the weather.
On a day when the rain held off a few of us ventured to Blackrock, thinking that the seafront wall would provide a suitable location, only to find that a wind that would test Tom Crean’s endurance whipped off the sea chilling the coffee before the road from the takeaway was crossed.
Religious services, unless you happen to live in one Cavan parish, are prohibited.
Well maybe we Louth people should be defying the regulations and attending Mass for it seems to have worked for Cavan last Sunday in the Ulster final which they won for the first time 27 years.
Christmas . . . that’s another matter. They say it’s only one day - a day in which you eat too much, drink too much and watch too much rubbish on TV.
Well for us over 70’s it’s much more than that. It is a time for family, for friends, we’ve done the eating, the drinking (well some of us) the office parties, the anticipation of the St. Stephen’s Night outing.
For us the hug from a daughter or son, the joy of giving to grandchildren is what Christmas is all about.
That most basic need, according to Dr. Tony, our Scrooge, the man who has thrown the wet blanket over Christmas, is not allowed.
WE NEED SOME COMMON SENSE TO ENTER THE DEBATE ABOUT THE FUTURE AND THAT MEANS THIS CHRISTMAS NOT NEXT CHRISTMAS
You know that saying ‘ live, horse, and you’ll get grass.’ keeps swirling round in the mind.
It’s something to do with although there is plenty or grass available, the horse can’t have any until some time in the future if it lives long enough.
Well it’s the same thing they’re telling us about the vaccine.
Deny yourself the joy of family, the company of friends, a pint in your local, a game of golf, a trip to Dublin for now.
You’ll have it all. . . family, friends and a holiday when we get this vaccine.
Will we . . . will we be given the time and will the vaccine work ?
We need some common sense to enter the debate about the future and that means this Christmas not next Christmas.
We don’t need neighbours furtively looking in the window to see if we have a guest that shouldn’t be there or if we are giving the grandchild a hug.
Nor do we want to see nosy vigilantes patrolling our streets trying to sneak pictures of young people that they can sell to the media.
We need some sense to prevail in the next week when Dr. Tony and his team meet with Micheal, Leo and yes Eamon to devise a plan that allows us to use the experience that our advanced age has conferred on us to enjoy Christmas in a way that does not make us feel guilty.