We will find a way through all of this
JIM GRAY OFFERS SOME THOUGHTS ON A CRISIS THAT HAS SHOOK THE WORLD
When my grandson was young, I’d tell him (only half-jokingly) that when he grew up and tried to flee the country, I would spread my long body, full-length on the tarmac to prevent the plane from taking off. Now he and his two sisters live less than 10 miles away but it might as well be the other side of the world.
Coronavirus has transformed the utterly abnormal into a strange new everyday normal. It’s a bit like house arrest with little day release. We’re all scared, worried rabbits, caught in virus lights, scurrying for the reassurance of a Caretaker’s wisely chosen words.
No work, or pints, or Rovers. No school or pals or hugs. No visiting our sick or praying for them at Mass. Restricted funerals mean we’re afraid to die while social media assholes make us more afraid to live.
We’re hearing words like apocalypse and dystopian which once belonged only in art house movies or dire biblical warnings. And in a country where people have been exterminated in brutal drug-fuelled gang war it’s as if toilet rolls have become the new heroin!
People who thought they had jobs for life no longer have work to go to.
In previous world catastrophes, like 9/11 or Turkish earthquakes or the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, there was a feeling of the abstract. Yes, we felt emphatic and sympathetic and prayed our prayers and made our donations. But it was out there somewhere, faraway. God love them, but let’s get on with our own lives.
But this one is us. In our midst, our communities, our families, all around us It’s global yet personal. Maybe that gives us strength in numbers, but it doesn’t always feel that way. In this case, paradoxically, numbers is both our strength and our weakness. Yet, among the desolation, the growing darkness, there is the lifeline of an inherent goodness.
Everyone wants to help, from the professionals who can, to the volunteers who insist they will. We’re all novices, from those at the top to those in the hospital beds. We are in unchartered waters, living a history that none of us wanted. But, somehow, we will find a way.
Invincible teenagers always want to rule the world, now they can save it, If only they listen. And not just teenagers – all of us have an obligation to obey the new life-saving rules.
In his short story, The Boatman, acclaimed novelist, Billy O’Callaghan has a great line: Every drop of the ocean is itself but it’s also the ocean. That’s us. All individuals, but together a great ocean of humanity, and that’s pretty powerful. Together, we have the intelligence and the muscle to fight this. Could we fight it with a virus of our own? Resilience and courage and kindness can be contagious, too.
Like James Cagney on death row, we will soon hear good news from the parole board. We’ ll hear the cavalry hooves thundering over the hill.
We’ ll hear Police Chief Brody at the end of Jaws: “smile, you son-of-a-bitch” And we’ ll watch the coronavirus shark blasted to kingdom come. And we’ ll hail our new real-life heroes, unlikely politicians and overworked medics. We’ ll count our losses and learn our lessons. Our world will never be the same again. But we’ ll search deep in our souls and just be glad we’re still here and able to make a difference. We are obliged, those of us left standing, to make that difference. Otherwise, nothing changes. And something, maybe everything, has to change.
We’re deep in this together and everyone is struggling. Nobody, regardless of age, gender, colour, wealth, nationality, is exempt. We are in a unique bond where to be selfish is to be simultaneously selfless. In other words, what I do for my own good is, for once, also for the common good. It is a strange, surreal place to be. The best we can do is diligently follow the advice of the experts and seek re-assurance where we can find it. For me, it was daily visits to the Holy Well at Tobernalt, which, ever since it was my childhood playground, has been a source of unexplainable consolation. The visits there, before the 2km restriction, provided me with a reconnection, not necessarily anything spiritual, but with the equivalent, I suppose, of a childhood comfort blanket. Maybe, now more than ever, we all need to search out that connection, whatever it might be.