Looking back – a reason to celebrate

Our minds are wired to avoid dwelling on the painful times in our past. It’s a relief on the one hand because it means we can move on and life improves, and the darkness of fear, hardship, and pain doesn’t seem so intense.

On the other hand, not having it at our fingertips makes it so much easier to forget the really bad times, making our present look less rosy.

I did a little exercise in looking back this week as we moved back into a proper office for the first time since we went into lockdown in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. I went into our newspaper archives to see what we lived through in 2020 and 2021.

The first thing that stood out were all the photographs with people wearing masks. Nowadays, you do still see the odd person wearing a mask, but for the most part, it’s history. I remember thinking at the time that we might never be able to go maskless again. We had no idea how long we would have to wear masks, or if we would survive the pandemic.

Do you remember that we originally went into lockdown for three weeks and that – for the most part – it lasted almost two years. We didn’t know what was happening to us, how long it would last, or if we would get through it.

We all went into survival mode. Life stopped being about the fun we could have when we weren’t working or about working towards some time out. It became about making sure that we and our loved ones stayed alive. Fun, seeing friends, and going out together became something of a dream that we didn’t know we would ever have again. The thought of going to watch a movie at a cinema became something from another lifetime. Considering going to a massive music concert or an international rugby match became cherished moments from the past that we didn’t know we would ever experience again.

In our edition of 5 August 2021, two years ago, we led with a story about the many people who couldn’t see family who were living in Israel, not for weddings, barmitzvahs, births, or funerals. It was a time where overseas travel was something totally exceptional and, again, something we didn’t know we would ever do again.

In that same edition, Hatzolah launched its vaccination drive after 113 people in our community died in July, the previous month. The strange thing is that the worst of the virus was actually over, but so many people were still getting sick and dying.

Do you remember getting COVID-19 or a loved one getting it, and how we prayed for life? And if they had to go on a ventilator, we prayed even harder because, in truth, there was nothing much else we mere mortals could do. We couldn’t even visit them in hospital.

And if we got frustrated with those overworked doctors who were looking after them, we had to remind ourselves about the risks and pressure on those same doctors to keep saving as many lives as they could. Those doctors, for much of the pandemic, were trying hard to learn as much as they could as quickly as possible about COVID-19 to be able to save lives.

Getting the dreaded virus didn’t come with any guarantees of survival. In fact, it came with the fear that we didn’t know how things would end for us, or what it would take for us to heal.

And when those who did land up in hospital didn’t make it, their loved ones couldn’t be there to hold their hands and say goodbye. They died, at best, with medical staff around them.

Why am I going on about this part of our lives we really would rather forget? Simple. We complain about a lot of things today, but life is 1 000% better than it was back then.

We don’t wear masks. We go to concerts, the theatre, and most of us have seen both Barbie and Oppenheimer in the past few weeks at the cinema. We can do exactly as we please when we want to.

Our children are going to matric dances again. We go to dinner parties where we feel no guilt if we choose not to wear a mask. In fact, it’s the opposite. People once again look at us oddly if we’re wearing masks and wonder why.

We can moan if we want to about how bad our situation is and yes, we do still have loadshedding, but we can always make a plan to get light.

We have options and we can picture a future. We can plan holidays without fearing that the beaches may be closed. We don’t have to worry about going to a party and catching a virus that might kill us.

I say this, but just this week on the news, we heard about a new COVID-19 variant. I discussed with our team whether we should write about it or get one of our favourite experts to do so.

We decided against it because, quite simply, nobody is dying from COVID-19 anymore and it feels like the pandemic, as we knew it, is history and nobody particularly wants to hear about it.

What I took home from this trip down pandemic memory lane was how lucky we are that we did survive it, and how fortunate we are that life has gone back to normal.

I know that for many, the scars of COVID-19 will take a long time to heal and for many, they aren’t obvious scars. For example, children missed out on so much during lockdown, which had an impact on their ability to socialise and get an education. Do we really know the true effects of that yet? I don’t know.

And there are other scars of loss and pain that we may not be aware of. I can only say to those suffering, please reach out. There are people who can and want to help. There’s always someone or an organisation in our community who wants to help you. Reach out.

But for the rest of us, no matter what’s going on in the world and all the tsoris in each of our lives, we have reason to celebrate. We’re free and the pandemic, as we knew it, is history.

Shabbat Shalom!

Peta Krost

Editor