Page 25 - Luce 2020

C ovid R eflections

in Melbourne had to endure more than resilience. We knew that our five-year
100 days of lockdown, and even though old could inadvertently kill our elderly
the city appears to be opening up parents if he went back to school.
now, many are still unable to return to
overseas homes, and unable to see their We knew that as this baby grew
families. inside me day by day, her life was not
guaranteed. Armed with the contactless
But through it all, looking back, I am Eftpos card, my husband was the only
amazed by how our JCH community one who ventured out to hunt and
has held together. During the year, far gather from the wilds of Woolworths.
from being cut off from each other, we
found creative ways to stay close. This But we also knew that despite media
ranged from sending each other funny reports, this was not the worst time ever.
images and videos, or articles that we
found interesting, to teaching each other “Those people who think that a state
chess over Zoom. Many students began government trying its best to protect us
volunteering, offering online tutoring to from death is deliberately making them
students from refugee backgrounds. suffer the worst they’ve ever suffered
should try surviving the Killing Fields of
Nothing can replace cheering on your Cambodia,” my father muttered.
college basketball team, or sitting in a In his seventies now, half a lifetime ago
park with a group of friends, talking late he knew what it was like to have every
into the night. But when these things are freedom stripped way.
impossible, communities do not simply
disintegrate. They change, they adapt, I was remotely mentoring an author
they reform. If anything, COVID-19 has friend whose manuscript was about
taught me about the powerful resilience surviving the Rwandan genocide while Alice with husband Nick, and children
of communities in times of crisis. There the rest of her family were murdered. Leo, Daniel and Celeste
are many stories of selfishness in this Another friend wrote: “A society that
pandemic; of people who care more cares more about the economy than home. The stump that once tethered her
about their own freedom than protecting human life doesn’t need a virus. It is to me fell off her belly-button on the
each other. But, from the early videos already sick.” third day.
of Italians singing on their balconies, to
my own little community in Melbourne, It was initially a difficult, nauseating I read an article about how scientists are
there are also stories of hope, and pregnancy. I realised that the healthy able to isolate all the different elements
comradeship. person can have many desires, while the that make up a human body – oxygen,
sick person only has one. carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium,
and phosphorus – even to their specific
Yet it was not the healthy, robust quantities; but there’s still one thing our
‘Dogged, tenacious, employed that pulled us through, but my science has never been able to do. We
enduring’: Alice aging parents and my sister who’d lost cannot animate life.
work as a casual relief teacher.
Pung’s lockdown She spent hours home-schooling our son The following week, we heard our
each day, while my parents – who could
Premier announce: Zero new cases.
lesson in love not return to their retail jobs – cared for Zero deaths.
our two-year old.
Life really is a miracle.
Our baby arrived during the tail end of This lockdown reminded us that you
our 112 days of hard lockdown. As her don’t always like the ones you love, Alice Pung
arrival drew closer, I realised that there especially when you are with them Peggy and Leslie Cranbourne
were only two certainties in life – birth 24 hours a day, seven days a week, Artist-in -Residence
and death, but even the timing of these but feelings are temporary; and love is
two certainties is unpredictable. We dogged, tenacious, enduring. [This article was originally published in
don’t have any control over when they Like the intellect, love is a muscle The Age, 3 November 2020]
will come. you have to keep exercising to keep it
growing and fit.
During my pregnancy we were living
with my parents and sister. When the When our baby came, it was in a
pandemic hit we isolated ourselves from hospital with masked doctors, midwives,
the rest of the outside world as much as nurses and cleaners working stealthy
we could. wonders like ninjas.

In our household, we deeply understood We watched her eyelashes and nails
the fine balance between fragility and grow visibly every day after she came

J anet Clarke Hall 25