2020 – The year that was, or wasn’t…
It’s been 3 years, and yet we still live in fear of 2020, or do we?
While speaking with some colleagues a few days ago about the year 2020, I mentioned that it seemed like a blank year for me, the year of nothingness but fear and sorrow. That’s when they both mentioned that it had been a wonderful year for them.
The country closed down on the 12th of March, they weren’t called in to work or to do anything until late April, they both became pregnant and so didn’t have to show up to work for the rest of the year.
As I heard them excitedly discussing what a wonderful time they had had, it struck me that they’d never realize the pain and suffering some of us went through, some much more than others. I remember it as the year when people died having had no chance of survival, when the world lost 1M people, when so many lived in fear of not seeing another tomorrow. I remember seeing pictures of people who’d died from the virus and never got a decent burial, sorrowing family members left without a last chance… and I remember my own situation.
I had to live each day not knowing if I would ever see my children again as they were thousands of miles away in Canada. I had to live each day knowing that if something tragic happened to them, I would never even get the chance to see them one last time. And they too had to live with the same reality. It was a sad time; even now when I think back (and I try so much not to), I feel utter desolation, the likes of which I never want to feel again.
I’d left my children in September 2019 with a happy step because I knew I was going to be seeing them June 2020, the month of my son’s graduation. The last picture I had of them, that I took as the taxi drew away, was of one in tears and the other holding back tears. I would stare at that picture for the next two years.
Three years later, and we have met a few times since the airports opened and life got back to normal. And I live grateful for the days that I have been given. But I guess there are some very lucky people like my colleagues who had their whole families safe at home with them, and who will never know the sadness that was ‘the blank year’, the ‘year that wasn’t’.
God keep us all safe. Amen.
Note : While watching a season of ‘The Good Doctor’ portraying the time when Covid struck, I just bawled my eyes out, especially when I saw messages like the one above, almost pleading with people to wear a mask, as it was a very difficult time in the US, with many people citing their rights to not wear one, while the virus spread like wildfire.