This week Boris Johnson told us that we have succeeded. That we have avoided the tragedy engulfing other parts of the world. For so many people, tragedy is well and truly with us. So many people have not escaped the tragedy, and my family is one of them. We lost my grandma to this virus. I write this not to say we stand out from the crowd but rather because we don’t and it seems the voices of those who have lost family and friends to this are not being heard. They are drowned out by the false positivity of a government whose main concern seems to be painting themselves as our saviours, who are more concerned with telling us we’re doing well, than telling us what’s really happening.
This pandemic is stressful, it’s scary and we undoubtedly need positivity. What we do not need however, is to be lied to. What we need is compassion and thoughtful leadership. Compassion is different to positivity and compassion is what we need.
They said we were doing well on the day my grandma died. They talked about how well Boris was doing. I turned on the news to hear how proud our government was when I knew their lack of measures had contributed to the death of someone I love. My grandma died and she was just a statistic. Just a government lock down come too late. Just filling the quota of an acceptable level of deaths. A resident at a care home that suffered due to the government not protecting our most vulnerable. She was just one of ‘our most vulnerable’. She was one of the people at the whim of our government. Unable to leave her home and reliant on the government stopping the outside world coming to her. And they didn’t. Our loved ones are not statistics. My grandma is not a statistic. She was a clever, funny, cake loving, caring and compassionate human.
We are in a time where grief is stifled. Keeping busy, keeping distracted, getting out, seeing friends. None of it can be done. So suddenly we are left alone with our grief. But even being alone is not even a privilege we can afford when space is limited. Our grief must be compactable into something manageable for those around us. Because we can’t go and outpour in a separate space, the space we have is shared. So grieve, but do so with consideration. Do so in moderation. You cannot lean on those around you too hard, because those around you are also those who are grieving. We cannot celebrate the lives of those we have lost when we cannot have funerals. We cannot be near each other at funerals. We cannot hug at a funeral, hold hands at a funeral. We all have to sit two metres apart. We cannot switch off from our grief, cannot separate it from any element of our lives. Social media, the news, all that’s talked about is Corona. Everytime someone talks about preventative measures, furloughing, 2m gaps, what they think should happen next, all of it is a reminder of the virus, all of it is a reminder of those we have lost.
So forgive me if I cannot hear this false positivity any longer.
I can’t listen to the daily briefing anymore. I can’t hear one more politician tell me that they are doing what they can. I cannot hear them stand and falsely champion causes my grandma stood for and believed in, when they are rolling out immigration policies that will shatter our NHS and care services. When they are attempting to vote in policies that will cut healthcare provison for transgender children. When they have so savagely slashed provision for the mental health services my grandma relied on.
I cannot hear them praise services that they are only now noticing for the fantastic things they do. All while these services are suffering from underfunding through policies their party put in place and their staff are having to risk their lives due to a lack of protective equipment. This party is the party who has slashed mental health provision on which my grandma relied. This party is the party who cut funding to local libraries and left social provision for the elderly cut off at the knees. I am finding it hard to hear conservative politicians praise what a wonderful job the nurses, the doctors, the healthcare assistants are doing. I cannot praise these politicians for finally coming to realisations that so many of us have known our whole lives. That these are the services that we need more than almost any others. And I cannot believe that they really appreciate these services. They are saying what we want to hear, while casually doing nothing.
The clap right now tears me in half. All I want is to celebrate what incredible work the NHS is doing. I have never felt more grateful to the NHS. During this crisis they have done more than they were ever designed to do. Normally we leave those we love in their care during the hours we cannot be there. When we can, we hold hands, we bring food and love. Suddenly we can’t do any of that. We have to leave those we love with strangers. I and so many others have had to trust the NHS with all of it. With all of the love. We have had to trust them to be there. Trust them to love and care for those they have never met. I have to trust that they were there for Nanny Joan when I was not.
They were there for my grandma when I couldn’t be. They held her hand when I couldn’t. And that is why I clap. I clap that they are being the love we cannot give, that they are caring now even more than ever. I clap in pure gratitude. I want to pour out love with each clap to everyone who is entrusting the lives of those they love to these people, and to the doctors, nurses and care workers who take on this task.
But the more I find out, the more the clap begins to feel hollow. The more the clap feels like it is drowning out the cries for PPE in a wave of national pride. We can’t clap out the voices of our health service workers telling us their working conditions are not viable. We have to listen and things have to really change.
So this is why I cannot hear our government say how well we are doing when I know that their lack of early lockdown has in part led to the death not just of my grandma but so many others. That her being at home would have been no better, with PPE not provided to care workers who would have had to travel between her and countless others, all while on zero hours contracts. When I know that it is their policies that have slashed the services that would have made us more able to face this pandemic.
Because in essence what they are saying when they say “we have succeeded”, is that they don’t care. That these lives have been dispensable. Even if this is not what they mean directly, it is what they are saying. They are saying that we have done well, that this loss is bearable. Maybe for them it is. But for me, and for so many others, it is not.
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