A year and a heap of memories

Last year was not the hardest time for me during the stretch of the pandemic up to this point. I am glad I didn’t know it would get worse though, back in March.

In mid-late March 2020, I was probably the most fearful. ‘Something’ was coming. We didn’t know what ‘something’ was. I have written other reflective pieces both contemporaneously and in retrospect so I don’t want to repeat that here except to say that we are all changed, whether we like it or not.

I’m loath to reflect too much on which the ‘worst parts’ of the last year were because I’m very aware we are not at the end yet, but it is useful to take a step back at significant intervals and mull on what we have lost, who we have lost and how we can change.

I didn’t do very well last year in a lot of areas and told myself to be kinder, to bear in mind I was living in an unknown but it niggled me, worse the niggle really, troubled me and still troubles me that I am in a position of responsibility and I didn’t do what I wanted to be able to do in a time of crisis. I needed time to look after myself as well as those I was responsible for and feel that sometimes I did not get the balance right.

When I think about people I know who have died or suffered over the last year, due to the impact of Covid, both mentally and physically, I can feel fortunate but sad. We don’t know all that we have lost yet. We have seen what leadership, and the lack of leadership looks like and costs in terms of lives, livelihoods and hope.

I was thinking yesterday as I took a walk, how amazing it is that a year ago, I could never have imagined I would be vaccinated (one time, anyway!) against this frightening virulant disease. That’s pretty amazing. But it isn’t an end, it isn’t an end.

We need to turn to respecting those who have not been able to make it, those who were loved and those who were not known or who don’t have people who miss them. The lonely, the isolated. They need remembering too, even if there are no loving families to witness the names.

So when I am reflecting today, and I will, I am focusing on those people who have slipped and fought their way from the world, without people who cared about them, without being able to tell their stories, without being missed. All those lives, all those souls had value and worth. We are more than the footprints we leave on on the hearts of others, because people who don’t love people, can love places, things, pets, animals — often, in my experience, they do.

Today, I am thinking how we note and value the people who don’t have support around them, the people who don’t have anyone fighting their corner, the people who get labelled by services as being awkward or difficult who have value, worth and ways to reflect and experience belonging which might not fit into our standard cookie cutter models of ‘family’ and ‘friends’.

And if I am learning into the next year, it will be not to judge or appreciate a person by who loves them or the networks they are part of, not that those aren’t important — they are — but because they are not the only things that are.