My additional song today is ‘If I Can Dream’.
I dedicate my song today to any parent and child who are missing seeing each other due to the lockdown situation in our country caused by the Coronavirus pandemic outbreak.
Lockdown is particularly hard to endure if you are living on your own as four of my five children do. All my children are aged between 35 and 45 years of age. Only my son James is married with a family and living in France.
William lives in Australia and his nomadic lifestyle makes him more dangerous than most with his constant and extensive travel. Adam has worked in Care Homes for at least a decade and has personally nursed and attended to several residents who have contracted Coronavirus. Adam is invariably working 12-hour shifts and is genuinely fearful for his own continued safety but is totally committed to his work. My son, Matthew works in a food processing factory in Barnsley and finds it impossible to maintain a social distance between himself and other workmates throughout his shift, but needs to work. My daughter, Rebecca lives in London. She is presently working from home and told me on the phone last night that the only place she has been outside the house during the past two months is to the bin. Rebecca has had asthma all her life and is also in a vulnerable category of person.
Most of my regular post readers will know that I am aged 77 years, I have three body cancers (blood, skin and rectal cancers). My blood cancer is incurable and robs me of any effective immune system. Ironically, what all people confined to their homes or hospital during the present lockdown across the country are currently experiencing, I have experienced for nine months each year for six of the past seven years.
I, spoke with my daughter Rebecca on the phone last night and she sounded most unhappy, a bit depressed, and is generally fed up with the current lockdown situation and pervasive killer virus. Rebecca is my only daughter and she visits me the more often than any of my other children. She loves having a weekend from Friday until Sunday night staying at our house with me and Sheila every few months. We usually play rummy and invariably, I win! In fact, the spare room where Becky sleeps is called ‘Becky’s Room’ by me and Sheila whenever we are describing it.
When we spoke on the telephone last night, Rebecca was highly disappointed with my response. She has been confined to the house and her own company for the past two months and hasn’t visited me since last Christmas. She believes that the current relaxation of the lockdown and the planned return to school and work for many parents and children will bring about a second wave of the virus increase around mid-summer; effectively putting the country back into full lockdown where we started off. So she was planning to beat a possible feared 'second wave’ of the virus and visit me and Sheila for a weekend in June. I had to stress on her that wasn’t possible, given my age and category of vulnerability, and without sounding alarmist, that it might even be early next year before my category of person is no longer confined to the house, with no visitors allowed inside the house meanwhile.
My daughter was very disappointed and found this hard to accept. We both finished up having a weep. In fact, I only managed to get two hours of sleep last night. Rebecca knows that I love her to bits, as I know she does me also.
My most pressing dream now is to see my children again. Given my own health issues, I can only hope that my time is not called by the heavenly boatmen ‘to come back in’ without ever seeing any of my children again. I do not believe that will be the case, but I have enough realism about me to know that even the luckiest of cats only have nine lives to spend, and since I was born, I have now used up all nine of mine.
’Oh, If only I could give all my children a hug and a great big kiss? It is rare that I allow a low mood to overcome me, but even the strong have to bend with the weight of sadness occasionally or risk breaking the back of continued wellbeing. Please God, keep all our children, grandchildren and all family members safe from this deadly virus, and that the time will soon come when we are all able to safely meet again in a family setting once more.
Love and peace Bill xxx