Dividing families through

"lock downs" is becoming increasingly stressful. This has always been obvious to me because it has affected me personally. My brother has not been able to come and see the Senior Cat as and when they both need it the most. Yes, my brother was here for a few days earlier in the year but they had to go back before the borders closed and they could not travel to see his partner's mother. (She is about the same age as the Senior Cat and also in aged care.) They managed one visit before the authorities decided such things should be banned.

The mental stress of not being able to freely see family and friends is becoming increasingly obvious everywhere. The argument is that by drastically reducing the amount of contact we are producing the spread of the Covid19 virus. 

Yes, that is probably true. We have had some of the toughest and longest "lock downs"  in the world. Undoubtedly they have helped to reduce the number of people who have been hospitalised, the number of people with "long-covid", and the number of people who have died. The same lock downs have also caused serious mental issues.

I was acutely aware of all this even before last week. I have been trying to keep in touch with local people I know are on their own. Even though we have been able to move out and about in this state I know that they are afraid to leave home. They are elderly and not well. Like the Senior Cat their families are often interstate or overseas and they haven't seen them for months. Many of them do not have access to computers or, if they do, the skills that would let them use something like Zoom to chat to family. Even doing that is not the same as having someone in the same room.

Last week when we lost Ciaranne her father, who has no family here, really needed his only relative but she lives in the nation's capital. There was no way she was going to be allowed to come. She still can't come and may not be able to come for weeks. Indeed it is more likely that he will be sent there for work and see her then. Right now of course he is not at work. He has rather a lot of leave owing to him and could take it but he will go back to work. His senior's wife, a doctor, has been watching him. They have given him a great deal of support. I am immensely grateful to them both for that because it has supported me and her closest friend as well. We have been extraordinarily fortunate. 

"I don't know how they could do that," someone else told me. 

I think I do though. They both came here as migrants. They don't have any family here. Their friends and colleagues are their family. They know about divided families and, in their lives, the horrors of war. 

I hope the borders are open by Christmas at least. It depends on people doing the right thing, on obeying "the rules", on getting vaccinated. It also depends on people giving one another the support some of them desperately need right now.