8. Write a letter to your
friend to tell
her/him about your lockdown activities
at home
Answers
LETTERS TO LOVED ONES, FRIENDS, COLLEAGUES AND ESSENTIAL WORKERS ON LIFE UNDER LOCKDOWN FROM VICKY PHELAN, JOE SCHMIDT, MAEVE HIGGINS, LYNN RUANE, IRISH TIMES JOURNALISTS AND OTHERS
To my niece and god-daughter, Lucy
You will be so mortified when you see Ant at it again, writing about you. We’ve had many names for each other over the years. Right now, I call you Niece, a knowing formality only possible because we are anything but formal with each other.
You call me Ant at the moment instead of Aunt, accompanied with the ant emoji in our texts, because it’s a joke. You’ve never actually called me Aunt. I’ve always just been Rosie. I already publicly mortified you last year when I dedicated my book of travel essays, Elsewhere, to you.
When you’re not holed up in your house these days, you’re at work, in Crumlin Children’s Hospital. Children don’t stop getting sick of other illnesses during a pandemic. You have seen and experienced things that I, more than twice your age, never have or will. When you were training, and living with me for a time, you came home more than once distraught by a dying baby you’d cuddled and tried to make comfortable in their last hours.
When my recent trip to Zimbabwe to see old friends was cut short by the need to leave before its borders closed, it was you who arrived – socially distanced – at my doorstep, offering to do my shopping. I hadn’t been back in the country more than two hours, but you knew I was starting a fortnight’s quarantine. That’s love and thoughtfulness, and the kindness you have so much of.
There’s a new addition to our family since January, Baby Amelie. My great niece and your first niece (or nephew, for that matter). You too are an Ant now. When I snuggled Baby Amelie for the first time in the hospital, I remembered the abundant love and immediate familiarity I felt for you, when I first held you.