TOMORROW WHEN THE WORLD IS FREE...

THERE WILL BE JOY AND LAUGHTER…

“There will be joy and laughter

And peace ever after

Tomorrow when the world is free…”

Every time we ended a Girl Guide’s meeting, over 30 years ago, we ended with a song, the rest of which escapes my memory, save for these last 3 lines. We sang this song just before the traditional ‘Taps’ of course. I always wondered what the author of this song was thinking when he or she wrote these words. I am not too sure, but I think this song was written during the First or Second World War…and that would make sense, because I can see how someone would write something like this during such an event. Except the world has never really been set free if you think of it; we are constantly in a battle over one thing or the other, in one or more parts of this world. Freedom, as beautiful as the word sounds, is not something that is truly within our grasp. We stare longingly at it throughout our desperate lives and imagine how beautiful it must be, but it is never really ours. Never. Why? Simply put, we are born to fight, we are in a battle everyday of our lives; we battle sicknesses and illnesses, we battle for financial freedom, we battle crime and violence, we battle for sanity, for morality, for truth, for love, for relevance. We battle for freedom from want, from oppression, from corruption, from all the terrible people and things that thrive in a fallen world.

On this day, 4th of May 2020, or if perhaps I can be so bold as to change the date from 2020 AD to 0001 AC, which is from Anno Domini to Anno Covid-19; the first day of my return to a semblance of ‘normality’ from a one month lockdown period. More than a lockdown, it was like house arrest, for I can count the number of times I went outside. Ironically, my own home was the jail. I wondered sometimes if anything would ever be the same again. Would we be able to gather again in church and sing to our hearts’ content? Would we be able to hug each other again? Would we be able to bump into each other and smile a quick sorry? Would we be able to dance at parties, go to weddings, queue up normally, push each other, even playfully? Would our children be able to go back to school and get on with normal school activity? Would we be able to throw away our face masks, or perhaps keep them in a museum to show our grand and great grand children as we told them stories about Covid-19? Would anything in our past lives ever be the same? Will there be joy and laughter, peace ever after, tomorrow when Covid-19 ends?

As I contemplate what my new normal will look like, I look back in history at all the times that something like this has happened before and yes, things pretty much go back the way it was before. This tells me that indeed, joy and laughter return, but only for an undetermined period. However, it is my opinion that we keep having these Covidlike issues because we always go back to the way things were, as opposed to changing the way things were and living in a way that Covidlike issues don’t happen. If for instance, we took better care of our planet, ensured everyone had decent housing, education, healthcare and food security, if we stopped all conflict and wars and lived with each other in peace, acceptance, tolerance, if we watched out for the vulnerable, if we ensured that people didn’t slide into crime or poverty, if we made the world truly a place of peace and laughter and joy every after, then, maybe then, the world would truly be free.

Maybe in a few months or years, Covid-19 will become history; it will join all the pandemics in the dustbin of the pandemic garbage dump. We will come out of our government or self inflicted/enforced quarantines. We will socially distance and wash/sanitize our hands for a while. The death rate will drop to zero, the infection rates will end, the almighty respirators will be warehoused, the tissue paper shelves will be filled again to the ceiling in all the stores. There will be joy and laughter and peace ever after when Covid-19 ends. We will go back to how things were. We will once again demean and pay our medical and front line staff badly and stop clapping for them. We will no longer give out consumables to the vulnerable. We will make profiteering the be all and end all. We will make healthcare inaccessible to all. We will continue polluting our planet, killing off other species of life, making the world a great spot for another pandemic. It is time to rethink our human wheel; this one doesn’t run smooth anymore.