Tragedy and loss...how do we cope?

Monday 6th July, 2020

Today there is some loosening of the lockdown rules in Scotland. An interview with Ms Sturgeon, the First Minister, which I partly watched seemed to convey her anxiety and fears rather than someone who felt the plans were  for the best. It must be extremely difficult for her to balance all the arguments, data and advice so as to walk the tight rope of beating the pandemic, minimising deaths and suffering yet also looking to the mental health of the nation suffering fatigue, isolation and fearful of the economic collapse of so much.

As is often said all the statistics are about actual people and those people are individually trying to cope with their lives and the fall out of the virus on them and their families.

I have no children of my own. I do not like the telephone as I find it impersonal and somehow without the full complement of human reactions one gets when speaking face to face. I have no apps but even those lack the dimensions of the face to face meeting. I had heard before this pandemic changed so much that conference calling was no substitute for an actual meeting.

You can imagine then the situation as I telephoned a dear friend whose son, a very brilliant hospital Consultant, is close to death or seems so. It is not, she informed me, Covid 19. The patient himself and his many medical friends are stumped as to exactly what is apparently near to killing him. He is feverish, has lost huge amounts of weight, has hollowed eyes and a sunken face. It seems one of his lungs has frozen, his heart is irregular and his breathing laboured. I'm speaking in lay terms. She does not know the medical jargon.

All I could sense on the telephone was the debilitating worry, the deep anxiety and the feeling of panic and helplessness. 'My Son, my beloved Son' she muttered again and again. Echoes came to me of the Gospels and the death of Jesus. That terror which grips, that terror which makes one want to scream aloud, that terror which makes one want to lash out, that terror which tears one apart, every fibre of one's being screaming in tension. Utterly dependent on others, on Fate, on God one cries out, again like the Gospel, " My God, my God why have you forsaken me?" Nothing happens, no immediate miracle, no relief, just the continuation and plague of pain, thoughts, fears and devastation.

She was utterly distraught. I had to sense if I was helping or not. I recalled the case of a friend of a friend. She was 35 and her 6 year old son had just died from meningitis. Our mutual friend said that as I was a believer would I, could I visit her? So we both went. As I walked up the short path the front door opened and this woman who looked wild as if she had just been through the gates of hell and glimpse the unbearable suffering screamed at me, pointing her finger " Your f....g God, your heartless, evil God has done this..." I stayed 5 hours and only left when she was finally asleep. We are still friends. For once I felt I had shared and experienced her pain. Sheer horror.

These are stories of people who few know but who are part of the statistics of life.

No wonder anyone with power to bind and loosen feels anxious.