It’s hard to believe it’s a year since the first COVID-19 case was confirmed in the UK. And what a year it has been. Everything we thought we knew, everything we took for granted, everything we envisaged, all turned upside down and inside out.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask.
Talk about thinking outside the box, we had to learn to think without a box. Find new ways to do things, find new things to do, keep positive, keep strong, keep going. It’s been less about having what we want and more about wanting what we have. Recalibrating our expectations, trying to keep safe and healthy.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask.
So I have been thinking about the challenges and I have realised that like every generation before us, we have a huge challenge to overcome. My parents grew up in Northern Ireland during ‘The Troubles’. There were lots of things they weren’t allowed to do, lots of places they weren’t allowed to go to, friends and family died. My grandparents lived through WWII. They remember the fighting, the bombing, the telegrams bringing bad news. They remember the food rationing after the war. They remember being hungry, all the time. My great grandparents lived through WWI, some of my relatives fought, and died, in the trenches. The generation before that endured the Irish potato famine. There was literally no food and they either starved in their homes or got on a ship to America. Some of them didn’t survive the trip. For those that did, there was no way back.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask.
Perhaps we can draw on the experiences of those who came before us. Perhaps we can draw on the grit and resilience that they had to have. Perhaps counting our positives at the moment rather than focusing on the negatives will help us get through. It isn’t easy, it isn’t fun but it won’t fix itself. We have to be part of the fix. Let’s show our ancestors we too can be strong. We too can rise to our challenges.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask.
Things did get better then, they will get better in our future too.
Wash your hands, keep your distance, wear a mask.
'An Aid for All' 