This moment in time is a rare glimpse into another world.

My grandpa was a vicar. When my grandma passed away after a long, tortuous battle with Alzeheimers, he couldn’t wait for the day he would be reunited with her again. Whilst he deeply mourned her loss, those few years of solitude were happy times for him, knowing that she was free of such a devastating disease, and that one day they would be together again without pain or suffering. There were times when I would envy his faith — I could see the strength and joy it gave him — and his unabiding love for his wife, a love he held so deeply it was unmatched anywhere else in his life.

As a vicar, he had undertaken many funerals in his time, and was adamant that his own would be an excellent one. He planned it in meticulous detail. He once exclaimed to us that it was going to be so good, he wished he could be there for it. At once both macabre and deeply funny, my grandfather chuckled to himself at the idea. On the day itself, he would have been proud — the service went off without a hitch, surrounded by his beloved congregation and family.

I reflect on that moment now as we witness what the world would be like if we were, all of a sudden, gone. Because, all of a sudden, we have gone , yet we are still here observing the spectacle from behind closed doors. We have retreated into our homes, under orders or in fear. The cars, trains and planes have stopped. The shipping and sailing have all but disappeared. Only a few heavily-laden cargo carriers and lorries continue to manoevre goods into our lives; face masks and food no doubt.

We are seeing how nature will return, the skies will clear, the animals will move back into their ancient, ancestral lands which we have devoured. We are hearing the noise of an earth without us, and witnessing the colours that can finally return.

It feels as if we are at our own funeral, and for many it’s a time of great despair — at the loss and pain, at the death and sadness. It’s the funeral we were not ready for, nor wanting.

For others, it’s a period of dread and fear like an unknown and ominous cloud that has appeared, forcing us to adapt and change, ready for the downpour of an uncontrollable, unending storm.

And there are those, like my grandfather, who may be enjoying it. It’s a moment in time some may have hoped for — a rare glimpse at a different way of life — one which we may even miss once it’s gone and the big, burdensome nightmares of life return.

We can only hope that once it passes, the wake will be one of shared stories and memories where we can toast the good and the bad, the times of elation and the times of anguish. It will be a chance to close the door on another chapter, and reflect on how we want to build the remainder of our lives and the legacy we want to leave. And perhaps most importantly, it will be an opportunity to thank those who have helped us make it through and finally reconnect to the family and friends we have so dearly missed.

Related posts:

Dia 20 de abril deste ano marca o 21º aniversário de um dos mais horríveis massacres em uma escola dos Estados Unidos. Naquele dia de 1999, Eric Harris e Dylan Klebold entraram na escola carregados…

After publishing my ASP.NET Core REST API to azure and fixing an initial SQL connection error, I tried doing some testing from Postman and from my locally hosted Angular frontend. What I ran into was…

Briefly about myself, I am a nineteen-year-old local high school graduate, joining SZOIL in November for a one-month internship. Since I found that most of the interns’ posts are informationally…