Pragmatism Rules - Or At Least It Should.

It’s funny how losing your child changes your outlook on life. Take Covid-19 as an example. At a personal level, I don’t give a stuff if I catch it or not. I’m reasonably fit and healthy and should, all things being equally, shake it off quite quickly. My only concern is that I don’t inadvertently pass it on to someone that it could do some real damage to. If I catch it, I’ll self-isolate and work from home. Simple. If the government’s view turns out to be correct, most of us are going to catch it anyway, so there’s little that I can realistically do to avoid it completely, so why bother? I have a job to do running a charity, and chairing a second, and that doesn’t go away just because I have a cough. Looking around at the selfish, moronic actions of some people, part of me thinks that a quick bit of Darwinian “natural selection” might be good for us as a society. One phrase popped into my head looking at some of the Facebook posts of empty shelves “what a bunch of oxygen thieves”. Cruel? Probably. Fair? Probably. The trouble is that it doesn’t work like that; those that will suffer the most are the old and people with major health conditions. Not the toilet roll-hording idiots. The people that are too dense to figure out that they are artificially creating the very problem that they seek to avoid; a self-fulfilling prophecy. Thankfully, children seem to suffer the least from the virus which is heartening. With any luck, when they are adults, they’ll look back at our generation’s crass stupidity and avoid those same mistakes.

Pragmatism, and in this instance, good old-fashioned common sense, seems to be a life skill that gets enhanced after losing your child. It reinforces perspective. Putting everything into context. Evie’s death makes this whole situation pale into insignificance for me.

Yes, I realise fully, and appreciate, that my views are at one end of the spectrum, and if you want to, you can take it all out of context and say that I’m being heartless. But ….. we base our lives, our actions and decisions on our history, what we have lived through and how those things turned out in the long run. Taking a pragmatic approach to Covid-19 strikes me as being a sensible way forward, not just for the childless parent community but for all of us. It isn’t a time to score cheap political points, standing on the sidelines throwing rocks at those making - and taking responsibility for - the decisions around dealing with the virus. We can all do that. It is a time to stop, think and help others less fortunate or able than ourselves. To be sensible and realise that the world is still spinning. It will still be spinning tomorrow, next month and next year. We can all criticise others, but how many will actually do something practical to help someone else? Will you?

Would my opinion be different if Evie was still alive? Possibly. But I also know beyond doubt that she would be watching the news with incredulity at how self-centred people are, while she would have gone out of her way to help her friends.

So, how about we all adopt a bit of basic pragmatism and common sense. It might not mean that you have a garage full of hand sanitizer and toilet rolls, but it will most definitely mean that we get through it together, and will emerge in a better state at the end of it. Learn from a 13-year-old girl that cared for her friends and be there for others, your neighbours, friends and family. If you can’t manage that simple act, then maybe Darwin was right. Mother nature is taking things into her own hands (washed for 20 seconds while singing Happy Birthday twice)!