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Eloquent plea @GoodGriefFest from @de_prudhoe in telling of her father’s death to understand each of the pandemic dead as a person not a statistic. And she spoke of something so painful I must now tell the story of what happened to me a couple of weeks ago... https://twitter.com/catherine_mayer/status/1322119204032708608
Kathryn @de_prudhoe spoke of the narrative amid #COVID19 that “people with underlying conditions would have died anyway”. This is toxic and underpins the policies that consigned the old and disabled to preventable deaths.
That people would have died irrespective of #Covid is only true in the sense that every one of us, underlying conditions or not, will die. Even so, those of us who’ve lost someone hear this constantly. So to my painful story...
Lockdown & subsequent restrictions severely restrict how many people I get to see. A lot of the time I’m alone. It’s such a treat to meet up with friends. So I was so happy recently to spend time with an old friend of @andygangof4 and mine
It’s fair to say this person has been having a tough time, lost income and caring for school-age children. This person has also listened to siren voices urging the government to let Covid rip “for the sake of the economy and mental health” when this would destroy both.
This person sees wearing masks as an imposition. “I’m so over this!” the person said to me in an accusatory tone as I bore responsibility for these necessary measures. Then, out of the blue, this person said “you know Andy would have died anyway”
Just for the record, that isn’t true or at any rate his doctors would disagree. On admission to ICU, the critical care team said he was the healthiest person there and they expected to send him home very quickly
The main point here is that this person was somebody Andy loved, who loved Andy. Someone I love and had hugely looked forward to seeing. Instead I went away bruised and bleak
I intend to find a way to repair the friendship. I blame the messaging around this disease and also more broadly around age, illness and death. Another reason why today’s festival is important and why I have written #GoodGrief
