My Bananas are in Quarantine :
March 27 2020 They are lurking in the garage on a 3 day shelf-isolation period waiting to be wiped clean of any traces of the Corona virus. Along with my marmalade, porridge, pasta, tea (PG Tips if you please) biscuits – I think they are Rich Tea, two very long packets, enough to last a life time, but let’s hope not. Two lots of shopping from two lovely daughters keen to help in this very strange time clutching possibly identical, rushed shopping lists from me. I hope they don’t bang into each other.
Protected species I’m grateful really, now that I am regarded as a protected species in lock down simply because I am aged over 70. .. with possibly or potentially underlying health conditions. Hubby can roam fairly freely for another three weeks when he turns 70 although I’ve noticed he’s not actually going out. He’s currently wrestling at the computer with Trump and Karl Marx. But the kids are free and boy! Are they strict. It’s not just role reversal, I’m sure I wasn’t that tough, this is sergeant major stuff. Stay at home, mum! Just stay! Poop-the-scoop So while they are allowed out, I’m not really – unless for limited exercise (not my thing), walking the dog (if I have to) or possibly buying essential items (risking Tescoes incognito wearing sunglasses, a big scarf and leather gloves). They were shocked when my benevolent dog walking plan came to light. I was going to leave Sonny, his lead and poop-the-scoop bags in the entrance tunnel to our flat for his lovely 83 year old ex-con (recently retired), desperate-to-do-something dog walker. Of course I was keen to help him. I was sure confinement, although familiar, was starting to have a deleterious effect on him. But the plan was sharply scuppered on discovery and me along with it. April 4th 2020 So here I am sitting at my computer, shielded from this scary pandemic sweeping the world, needing to remind myself of not only having the basics – food, health and shelter, plus a gorgeous hubby – is he a ‘basic?’ and my kids nearby – but also a lovely flat in an 18th Century historic crescent in Bristol with a magical garden and surrounded by brilliant friends who would do anything for you (if only they could). October 1964 Triggers can stay forever I once belonged to another group restricted for a different reason. Society was equally strict, rigid, uncompromising in its attempt to get rid of the problem, not wanting us to harm the family, or society. This was in the so-called swinging sixties. We were the virus We were the group that was seen as contaminated. Unmarried mothers who dared to think it was OK to bring up your own child even though you weren’t married! Thousands of us. Forced into giving up our precious babies for adoption. The stigma guaranteed to maintain a social distance. Back then I was an unprotected species. No friends, family, neighbours to help in any way. Banished until it was all over - a complete absence of visitors. Or farewells. Or the baby. Did we ever recover? The assumption was that we would become virus-free, uncontaminated, having been instructed to ‘go away and forget’ you ever had a child. But we didn’t – I didn’t, the scars and the triggers can be life-long. Forced adoption Trying to deal with forced adoption isn’t about going away and forgetting. it’s a lifelong journey that can take a lifetime to learn how best to deal with a loss as irrevocable as death except there is no funeral, no farewell, no comfort. Now that I’m a protected species – I know that back then being protected and cared for would have helped. Sue Wells Author of ‘A Sense of Something Lost’
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