The scars that will leave us stronger
In the years before the virus exploded into our world, words like ‘selfie’, ‘unfriend’ and ‘climate change’ were crowned as ‘word of the year’. In year 2020, after the word Covid grabbed the spotlight, enough has been said about it and its consequences. Must I not be weaving a tale that will leave a smile or even a fluttering flicker of hope in its wake, rather than add to the horrors of the tale, I wonder. Yet, I write on about the untold stories that have left scars so deep that their pain will resonate long into the times ahead; about those unsung heroes among us, some of them who like to be referred to as larks — tiny birds fluttering about feverishly, attempting to sprinkle drops of water that its little beak can hold onto a raging fire, hoping against hope to douse some of the flames or lessen the rage of its fury while it continues to devour everything on its path.
I fall into the crowd of expatriates who haven’t travelled home for a while. Mother rarely misses throwing reminders during our calls, sometimes with pictures of all that I am missing and at other times with longing reminders that being safe is the need of the hour. As the two-year mark draws to a close, only our virtual meetings make missing them bearable. And then I got to hear about a building mate who lost her daughter — a new mother who had built a monument of dreams, brick by brick, for the child growing inside of her, that reduced to tubes, wires and her passing away just days after her baby’s birth. The young mother’s parents were inconsolable as they groped about in the dark coming to terms with their grief while standing witness to a new born fight all odds to survive amid coping with the formalities to repatriate their daughters remains. A ray of light eventually made its way into the blackness when a group of good Samaritans took it upon themselves to support the grieving parents with the formalities between coordinating, communicating and easing their days of sorrow until the paperwork came through, standing by them until they were on the flight home.
Better safe than sorry
We have learnt to live alongside the virus, but the stories around us repeatedly show us that it’s better to be safe than sorry.
The corona era has led to confusions in many aspects of our life that we earlier deemed certain. If we choose to keep children safe by opting for online schooling, then there are worries about how much they are missing out on; if we choose to send them to school, we worry if children will find a way to bend the safety measures in place. While some of us fret and see-saw between what’s enough and what’s safe, there are others who are forced to choose between educating their children and putting food on the table. As Ramadan drew close, one such family suffocated under the pressure to keep the family afloat with unpaid loans and reduced income. A friend, who likes to call herself the lark doing her little bit, made enquiries and raised funds to pay off fees that put the child back into school and had groceries sent to ease their burden through this holy month. Their difficulties are far from over, but this family cannot be thankful enough.
Even in these dark times, there is so much to be thankful for. If 2020, a year that got us to realign our priorities and redefine life itself, had ‘Covid’ as the word of the year, then 2021 will see a word that encapsulates what this world is mostly in need of, a word as simple as ‘hope’, ‘humanity’ or ‘health’, for only these can lighten the scars of these times and make our tomorrow stronger.