How Covid-19 touches relationships

By Lissy Kurian

Panaji: Long before Covid-19 spread its tentacles across India, I had planned for my annual home vacation in November this year. Hence, I remained calm as the nation scored high and low in the number of Covid-19 patients. I hoped November would be a good time for travel and holidays. But I was wrong.

First of all, the Covid-19 is reported to peak in November in India.

Secondly, entry into the home of my relatives is appears to be tough. Kerala, my home state, demands people from outside state spend seven days in self-quarantine, even if they are Covid-19 negative.

In September I called my paternal aunty to tell her that I would spend my quarantine days in her house and she could stay in my house. She said, “It will not be good that you stay alone particularly at night. And what about your food?”

There was no possibility to stay in my own house as the facilities there were not conducive for quarantine.

I told my aunt that I can get food from home each day as it was near. I gave her another option as she stayed alone: She could stay downstairs, and I would stay in a room on the first floor. She turned down that request too. I felt really sad. This was the aunt, whom I hold dear. In my earlier holidays, she used to insist that I spend at her house for as many days as I want. Her refusal to accommodate me in her house this time gave me enough food for thought.

Two years ago, I had lost my uncle, who was her husband. She was very insistent of my presence at the first anniversary Mass and I made it. This November is the first anniversary of my another uncle, and I told her about it.

My next option was the house of my maternal aunt, who also stays alone.

I got in touch with a cousin who was already in her house and in quarantine. She was doing fine staying on the first floor and the domestic help providing her food. She travelled from the airport in a taxi.

When her seven-day quarantine and the Covid-19 test were over I called her to inquire about her experiences.

She said she called up her cousins in nearby areas. To one she said, “I cannot visit you in this present pandemic situation. Quick came the answer, “Yes. Please do not come.” She said she was shocked. It was the family who always waited for her visit and whined if she failed to call on them, even during her short visit home.

“People are looking at us as if something strange is happening. No one wants to associate with us, who have come from outside Kerala,” she said.

She was glad another cousin visited her with his wife.

I could sense the tears brimming her eyes as she spoke to me over phone. What she said next filled my eyes too.

She said, “I had called mummy when I thought of visiting her and had told her that I was being transferred to a far place from home and it would not be easy to visit home soon. So I wanted to spend some time with her as she is alone and not too well. She was delighted about the information and called me the next day asking when I would reach the house. I confirmed the flight ticket and was getting ready for travel and in the subsequent conversations with her I felt a kind of distance between us. I had also informed her about the necessity of quarantine. She had taken it all very well and was looking forward to spending days with me. But now she was sounding different. I could sense a kind of fear in her. Someone must have put it in her. When I reached home I saw her and then went to my room on the first floor. But she was keeping herself away, not even calling me to enquire about how I was. I was feeling very sad at this indifference. I underwent Covid test after seven days and now I am with her. Yet the experience haunts me. What a distance fear of Covid-19 has brought among us”

I lost the second option to spend the quarantine during the annual holiday. I thought this aunt would welcome me.

Until now, when I heard about people forced to stay away from parents and dear ones and friends because of the pandemic, I did not feel much. “But now, it has sunk deep in my heart, with pain.”

For the first time in my life I felt and lived every word of this hymn:

Sweet Sacrament of peace.
Dear home of every heart,
Where restless yearning cease,
And sorrows all depart.
Here in thine ear all trustfully,
We tell our tale of misery
Sweet Sacrament of peace.