I remember the day of his birth. I remember sitting by his cradle when he was dangerously ill as a baby. I remember his joy when his daughter was born. We are not close and have never really got on particularly well but he is my brother. This week I learned that when this is all over I want to see him and talk with him.
This week I learned that my wife has been temporarily laid off from work, from a job she loves, and my younger son has had the offer of his first job rescinded both because of the shutdown in the UK. I was supposed to be there this last week but had to cancel the trip. I can chat with them on Skype but I can”t embrace them and console them. This week I learned that when this is all over I have to take every opportunity to demonstrate my love as a husband and father.
This week I learned that a friend I had not spoken to in three years had died two years ago, alone in his home in Greece. I found this out because of a tweet marking the death from COVID-19 related causes of someone else which contained a video that my friend had made with that person. This week I learned that when this is all over I must never again let the opportunity to speak with friends slip by.
When this is all over, will things go back to what we used to call “normal”? I do not think so and, in fact, I profoundly hope not. I am fast coming to believe that this is not a pause in that “normal” but an end to it and in that end a new beginning: the beginning of a new “normal”. In glimpses half-seen and echoes half-heard I sense that in the face of this crisis, we have discovered that something matters more to us than the headlong pursuit of the satisfaction of our own ambitions and desires at almost any cost. We have discovered, recovered perhaps, the importance of our relationships with our friends and families, our colleagues and acquaintances. When this is all over I hope, I pray that the old atomised, selfish, objectifying, consumption-of-ever-more-stuff “normal” will fade unlamented from view and that a new normal will take its place.
