Of normalising death amidst a global pandemic
Death (or talk of it, to be precise) has never been a strongpoint of mine. Talk to me about politics, art, the existence of God, the complexities of human nature, freedom of speech, and any topic in between — I’ll jump straight into that conversation and will debate you for hours on end. But the thought of death is just something I’ve never been quite comfortable with. I can talk about it, but it’s going to instantly spiral me into a heavy feeling of sorrow. The thought of losing loved ones is something I’ve struggled with since I can remember, and writing about it now brings a lump to my throat.
So with that in mind, I think it’s easy to understand how messed up this past year has been (notwithstanding the obvious). If you had asked me 5 years ago, becoming accustomed to daily death tolls being included as part of a list of other statistics like it’s absolutely normal, isn’t something I imagined myself doing.
If I were to look at what has happened in my life since the pandemic hit a year ago, I would say it’s been pretty kind to me. Like everyone else, the first few weeks were hard and the change and uncertainty were difficult to come to terms with. But eventually, I got into an element of ‘pandemic productivity’ (or whatever we were calling it) — looking at ways I could contribute to the greater good in my professional setting. Eventually, I decided to allow myself to explore some of the free time which had inevitably come up and which I hadn’t had in years. I started going on long walks, exploring parts of the local countryside which I didn’t even know existed. Every now and then, I would even go cycling. Never having been the sporty kind, I gave in and got excited about the idea of purchasing a kayak when it was proposed, and spent the summer exploring more of the place I’ve called home but didn’t know enough about. I did most of that with my boyfriend, whom I wouldn’t have spent so much time with had it not been for this pandemic. I enrolled for a Masters, because why the hell was I delaying that anyway?
All in all, I can’t really complain, right? There were negative episodes which I haven’t pointed out here, but no story too terrible for anyone to live through.
So when I broke down in the car this week, crying at the thought of how this pandemic has changed us forever, I felt almost selfish about feeling so sad. There’s so many people who have lost loved ones. So many who have lost their safety nets. Millions who are living in poverty and lack of hygiene. I had no right to place myself in a boat anywhere as similar to theirs.
And yet, the one thing I could think of was the story I had read in the news a few days before, where a daughter recounted how her 40-something mother had tested positive to the virus, been recovering at home for a week, until the day came when she went to sleep but didn’t wake up.
I’ve read so many similar heartbreaking stories over the past year, but this one hit particularly hard because it came at the same time I was coming to terms with the fact that it’s been a year since this pandemic completely changed the way we go about life. It also coincided with new restrictive measures being announced locally, plunging us all into a big ocean of doom and ‘we’ve been here before’ / ‘March 2020 all over again’ sort-of-chit-chat.
Some (myself included) have compared this pandemic to the experience of the war as recounted by our elderly. The fear, the uncertainty, the death tolls — it’s been described as the defining factor of our generation. Our grandparents spoke of bombs being dropped like there’s no tomorrow. We’ll be speaking of masks, swabbing centres, and hand sanitiser.
Yet the most difficult part of living with this pandemic has actually been our reaction to it as a global community. I’ve come to despise the words ‘new normal’. The need to adapt, to be flexible, to adjust — that isn’t something I’ve ever rejected. Quite the contrary, I’ve always welcomed change with open arms and regarded it as an opportunity for growth. Yet in the face of extraordinary death tolls, shoot me for saying that I refuse to accept this nightmare of a pandemic as some sort of normal.
A year ago we had claps for frontliners, the #staysafestayhome hashtag, solidarity solidarity and solidarity, booming creativity from people stuck in their homes, and more of where that came from. Fast forward to today and we have politicians who are more interested in safeguarding their re-election, people organising secret rave parties because they feel they deserve them, and petty arguments about who gets access to which vaccine.
Which really makes me feel like we’ve learnt absolutely nothing at all. Our egoism feels like it’s at an all-time high, and we constantly choose to point our finger to others before examining the four fingers pointing right back at us in the process.
This pandemic feels like a war. But when war hits, life doesn’t always go on as usual. Life sometimes has to stop, be it for economical reasons or due to collective trauma. Yet a year from the start of this pandemic, human beings have returned to their race towards the finish line (wherever that may be). Companies boast about their profits in 2020 while others declare bankruptcy. Business owners struggle to find ways to remain relevant while budding entrepreneurs come up with quick ways to make easy money and profit off the dire situation we’re all in, highlighting eternal issues surrounding consumerism. The need to remain productive, to remain active, to go on with ‘life as it was’: it’s all shoved down our throats to the point where we become the ones preaching this idea of a ‘new normal’.
Yet people have died and continue to die. Yet I’ve now desperately resorted to wearing a mask in my own home because I live with my 65-year-old parents and I feel responsible for their wellbeing. Yet I have only held my almost-five-month-old nephew once, and that’s after taking a million-and-one precautions. Yet my friend’s grandparents have decided to take the risk of contracting the virus over spending their last few years isolated from their immediate family. And who the hell are we to blame them?
Someone recently made the argument that nurses (and anyone in the medical field) should just put up with this pandemic because ‘they knew what they were getting into’. It’s like saying parents who lose a child shouldn’t grieve, because they knew what they signed up for when they agreed to parenthood.
Maybe I’m making this bigger than what it needs to be. Maybe I’m choosing to live in fear. Maybe I need to stop moaning and just get on with life. Maybe we’ll all wake up tomorrow and it will be over. And maybe we won’t wake up at all.
Maybe we all just need to accept that everyone is coping in the best way they can. Because it is a global pandemic after all, and where’s the handbook for that, anyway?
