No One Helped Her

Dean Brooker 17 April 2020

Reflective Essay Covid-19

No One Helped Her

My uncle always tells me, it was not always this way. Life was about living, not about surviving. People shared the little moments. Children smiled as they looked in each other’s eyes. Love at first sight was a reality. I cannot imagine that world.

We used to be “affectionate”, my uncle always tells me. I have never understood that word “affectionate”. My uncle once explained that when we saw our loved ones, we would “hug” and “kiss” them. You would feel their arms tightly around your body, their heart beating against your own heart and their breath brushing past your ear. No one “hugs” anymore. I have never thought of “hugging” my mom. My uncle always shouts at me when I say goodnight to my mom.

He would say, “”Hug her, say goodnight to your mom properly!”

My mom and dad would stare at him. They would stare at him as if he had murdered someone or had stolen a sweet from the sweet jar. My parents would then look at me, and I would walk down the passage to my room, always without “hugging” my mom.

I have heard of the times when people used to travel the world, fly overseas, visit their relatives in England and would go on amazing holidays with their family. The highlight of my week is going to the grocery store with my dad. I love my weekly outing to the grocery store! We always go the same route. We go past the beach, onto the main road and park at the top parking lot. The main road is three lanes wide, but there is never any need for more than one lane. My dad and I sometimes go to the grocery store without passing another car. There are never children walking on the sidewalks. The roads are empty.

The one time I went to the grocery store, I saw my friend Raj. He was my best friend but we had never met in real life. We spoke every day after school on our cellphones. As we saw each other, we began to walk towards each other. We moved closer and closer. Then stopped. He had a breathing impediment that made him breathe a bit louder than normal. We stood so close I could hear him breathing. We did not touch. We did not, as my uncle calls it, “shake hands”. We just stood a meter apart and spoke for a few minutes.

As Raj and I were speaking, we heard the sound of a glass bottle of ground coffee break into tiny pieces, then the sound of a head smashing against the hard cement surface and finally, a high-pitched scream. An old lady, about 92 years old, had fallen.

Blood was streaming from her head and her scream grew louder. Everyone in the store looked at her and then carried on with their shopping. No one helped her. Single tears ran down her face while she tried to pick herself up off the floor with her left arm, then her right. She could not lift herself up. No one helped her. Her veins appeared as if they were about to implode. Her thin arms pressed against the floor. Her blood mixed with the coffee granules as she continually tried to lift herself off the floor. She could not.

No one helped her.

I began to walk away from Raj and towards the old lady. My dad grabbed my arm and pulled me back. My fingertips went instantly blue because my dad’s grip was so tight. My dad and I paid for our groceries and walked out of the store. As I departed, I made eye contact with the lady. Her eyes were blood shot from crying. No one helped her.

My uncle always tells me it was not always like this. One day I asked my uncle what had changed.

I could not understand everything he was saying with his big medical and economic terms. What I understood was that there was a time when human beings were very affectionate, then there was this “distancing” time and after that, people were never affectionate again.

He kept saying and emphasizing, “It was never supposed to go on forever, this “distancing” period was supposed to stop!” He explained that the distancing period went on for so long that people did not trust each other anymore. They began to fear each other. The human touch became obsolete.

Some nights I wish that I lived in the world in which my uncle had lived. As my dad made his final cup of coffee for the night, I would hear the sound of the coffee beans grinding and I would imagine travelling to the place where those coffee beans grew. I would imagine Veronica, my online crush, arms wrapped tightly around my body, like a “hug”. I would imagine giving Raj a “high five” after playing video games together. I would imagine giving my mom a “kiss” before I went to sleep.

I wonder if the people who lived during the “distancing” time, knew what kind of world I would live in?