It's gonna be alright

I don't know which misguided person said 'time heals all wounds' but that is a bit of an exaggeration, for time certainly cannot heal some wounds. What it does though is to make some unpleasant situations eventually become nothing but faint memories.

It's sometimes easy to start feeling sorry for yourself when you are as restless as I am and feeling stuck, especially after they closed off the gym and pool in our complex.

I was therefore forced to put things into perspective.

Heck, what am I complaining about when the late, great, Nelson Mandela was stuck in total confinement in a much smaller space for 25 years! But who am I to want to compare myself with such a unique person, for such tribulation would have driven the ordinary human totally crazy!

The point is though, millions, at some time or the other, have had to remain in one place and most survived, put it behind them and moved on.

I remember watching an interview with a Holocaust survivor who was kept hidden by himself in the attic of a kind non-jew for three whole years from he was age nine. He was over 90 years old at the time I saw the interview and he had survived, prospered and lived a good, successful life.

I also read the story of a Rwandan lady who was hidden in the bathroom of a pastor for three months during the genocidal campaign in that country. She eventually got out, moved on and is a successful teacher in her country today.

And didn't I, a few years ago, ride out a miserable six weeks without electricity, without a means of making a living and eating tinned corned beef almost every day?

Yep, that was from September to  December 1988 when a wicked category 5 hurricane named Gilbert, devastated my little island and some of us in the capital, Kingston, never got back electricity for months as most of the light posts on the island were torn down.

I was totally unprepared for that event although the Met Service had been giving several warnings that a direct hit was inevitable. The problem was though, every year we got those same warnings and no hits, so I had stopped preparing for hurricanes!

I, therefore, had nothing stored up for that rainy day, so to speak.

But although I was left in the dark for six weeks, I really cannot now even remember the day to day trials and tribulations of what must have been an unpleasant and stressful period.

We were not under quarantine as we are now and our freedom of movement was only curtailed because trees and light posts blocked most roads for days and even weeks. Thank god I have never been without my trusty bicycle though!

I do remember that because I was unprepared, I did have difficulty with basic foods and other stuff, for even where you could find a shop open, the shelves were bare. Besides, farms had been wiped out and because so many roads were blocked, even where businesses had any goods to distribute, vehicles could not get through for weeks.

I was by then a single mom with two teenage children and no financial assistance from their father, no fridge, not even fans to keep us cool and only lamps to light the dark nights. Luckily, I had the lamps and candles as power cuts in Jamaica had been regular and unceasing, although none really lasted more than a day at a time before that stupid hurricane.

Now, I don't even remember how I managed financially, as most businesses in the city were closed as they could not operate without electricity and because I had just set up my Public Relations business, it must have been a particularly dry time for me.

One of the few things I recall about the aftermath is how it took me years before I could even think of eating corned beef from the tin, for as a  rabid carnivore without a refrigerator, I remember always having to turn to that for meals. when I could find any to purchase.

You know, there is a popular adage in Jamaica "good fren betta dan packet money" and it did prove to be so true during that drought, for whenever friends saw anything available, anywhere, they would get extra for others.

It took me years too before I could drink room temperature water, for without electricity we had to boil the water and with the natural heat on our island, we never had a chance for the water to really become cool, for we had no ice.

Oh, yes, we did get ice for a while, for when the roads cleared a bit, a friend of mine used to drive some 16 miles daily to Spanish Town to buy ice until we heard that the water they were using to make the ice, was the irrigation water in the canals!  Those waters weren't even used for irrigation alone, for whenever you drove by the canals, you would see kids swimming, people bathing and even animals in them.

In retrospect, we used that ice for many weeks before the rumor (?) stopped us in our tracks, but it never killed us!

I recall with much love how when I told my brother who lives in the USA about that dilemma, he offered to send me a cooler (as neither coolers nor things like generators, were to be found anywhere on the island). Yes, he sent it,  but with everything virtually closed down for months, it arrived about six months after the electricity was finally restored!😡😡😡.

It must have been a difficult and stressful period, but now all I have are vague memories of quite insignificant things like the above, for we survived, we overcame, we rebuilt and we moved on.

The point is, no matter how dire things appear to be at the moment, nothing lasts forever.

I, therefore, predict that by next year this time, those of us who don't get killed by this invisible menace, will forget the confinement and will probably be laughing about some of the trivial discomforts that occurred during leap year 2020.