We are all living through what is likely to make it into the History books.
We have been catapulted into a new reality. In the space of a month our whole lives have been turned upside down and inside out.
Entering 2020, I remember keeping a close eye on developments which were happening in Wuhan, China. Seeing the restrictions, never realizing how quickly that depth of disruption would reach our shores.
In a world, where we are so interconnected that can be a positive but also a negative too, as is seen by this example.
The spread of this virus has been expedited by our love of travel and indeed the free movement of people throughout the globe.
When I watched those people from far off China laying their dead to rest, I felt a sense of safety in the knowledge that they were there and I was here. That sense of safety has been stripped from me and everyone I know now.
There is a palpable fear of imminent loss, a dread that surfaces, shouts in the darkness to you and rumbles in the shadows of your thoughts.
They say one of the certainties of life is death, though never has that saying felt more real than it does now.
We in these isles have known death, my parent’s generation lived through that struggle, through our Troubles, we were lucky to be spared that.
We have watched other Countries live through epidemics, we have empathized but we have never had to endure that hardship, until now.
Trying to navigate the emotional hurdles, the fear, the anxiety, these are going to be our companions for the foreseeable future.
We must learn to be bedfellows, however strange and uncomfortable that may be for us.
Small things in life, now are things we would give anything for, to visit a friend, to go to a gig, a party, an event. How we wish we hadn’t taken it all so much for granted.
The times are uncertain, the future unknown, we are living through unprecedented times and our fortitude will have to surface through it all.