Kindness comes back to the surface at this time of national crisis
YOU might not be familiar with the home delivery box from An Post, but it’s a godsend to those of us who travel a lot. You mount it on an outside wall and only you and your postman or woman can open it. If there’s a delivery, you get an email notification, so you don’t even have to physically check it every day.
As it happens, post was delivered last Friday, but for some reason, I didn’t get the email to alert me. Gerry the postman delivered again on Monday and wondered why, since my car was in the driveway, I hadn’t collected it. He rang the bell but I must have been in the shower or the garden and didn’t hear it.
Now, he could easily have left things be, and tootled off without a care in the world, but he didn’t. He saw one of my neighbours tending to her garden and, keeping his physical distance, he asked if she had seen me, and if I was OK.
Fantastic
Naturally, I texted him to confirm that, but even that struck me as reassuring. How many of you even have your postman’s number in your phone? I certainly never did when I lived in Dublin, so maybe it’s a rural thing (or semi-rural, since I don’t exactly live in the wilds).
But more was to come. The relief postman is a guy called Shane White, a Nenagh man married to a Gorey woman. Shane and I are friends on Twitter and he messaged me privately on Monday night to see if there was anything I needed, and the home delivery box was drilled into service in a way I never could have imagined.
I actually did want a few things from the shop – potatoes, protein milk, fresh cream and a net of lemons and limes (at this stage, I’m fearful of scurvy!) – which he said he would pick up for me, no bother. Since Tuesday was also the day the Taoiseach was to announce new measures to combat the virus spread, I decided to go for a long drive, and headed off to New Ross to see the fantastic new Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Bridge that forms part of the muchneeded bypass of that traffic bottleneck.
Now why, I hear you ask, if you could go for a drive, could you not also go to the shop? Well, the simple answer is that I’m one of those people with an underlying condition, in my case diabetes, that puts me at much higher risk of complications should I contract Covid-19. I’ve been self-isolating alone for two weeks now. I’ve walked to the beach but I haven’t been indoors except in my own house during that time, and haven’t come within three metres of another human. It’s not exactly great, and I’d kill for a chat face to face over a cuppa or a glass of wine, but it’s impossible for now and I have accepted that.
Before I went out, I opened the box and left a note for Shane to thank him, and a bottle of wine to repay his kindness. When I got back, I opened it again and inside were the milk, the lemons and limes, and the cream. The 5kg bag of spuds was tucked out of sight below the box.
The money I left there was untouched – he hadn’t taken a cent – and he also left me a note, saying: ‘Have a drink on me’. Why? Because, completely unbidden, he had also left me two of those cans of pre-mixed gin and tonic.
I was absolutely floored. The kindness this crisis has brought to the surface was always there, but I think sometimes we’re reticent to offer help, and doubly so to accept. Now that we have no choice, I find myself bowled over daily by the number of people keeping an eye on me, from family to friends to total strangers.
Last week, on Twitter, I mentioned how much I love St Tola goat cheese from near Ennistymon, Co. Clare. The owner, Siobhán Ní Ghairbhith, spotted it and got in touch for my address. A few days later, a courier left a package on the step and rang the bell, waving from his cab as I brought it inside. In the box was a kilo of St Tola, which freezes beautifully, so I portioned it, but not before larruping into the first, thick, creamy slice. I sat it on brown toast, sprinkled it with crushed walnuts, baked it for ten minutes, then drizzled it with honey and had an absolute feast.
And that’s what I’ll remember from this crisis. I’ll remember Siobhán’s kindness, because while I’m mostly grand, there are some days I’m climbing the walls and need a pick-me-up. I’ll remember Gerry the postman asking if I was OK, and I’ll remember Shane for his generosity (and it seems his wife will remember me for the wine).
I’m reminded that in many instances, postal staff are the true first responders. They’re the ones who notice if your blinds are shut, your curtains are drawn at midday, or if there’s been a change in your normal routine – and if they can’t get a response from you, they’ll alert the people who can help.
Community
An Post is now proactively promoting this as a community service, but in truth it always has been there. The postal workers are vital cogs in the community wheel, and we would be lost without them.
I’ve probably embarrassed them both by highlighting their generosity, but it cannot go unrecorded. Quietly, every day, all over Ireland, there are heroes like these two men who just keep an eye out for us, even when we don’t know they’re doing so, and I’m very, very glad they are.
I opened and enjoyed one of the cans of gin and tonic, with a slice of one of the limes, and as I toasted them, I also was reminded of one thing. If there ever was an actual emergency, then unlike the flute on the radio ad whose mother is lying half dead on the floor, at least they know my Eircode!