My best friend Jo is like a sister to me. We’ve been mates for 40 years and she knows me better than anyone.
So to know she’s had the worst week of her life and I can’t be there for her is heartbreaking. And now I’m angry too.
Jo’s dad was poorly. He collapsed at home and an ambulance came.
He spent two weeks in hospital, on his own, with Jo taking him clean clothes, which she had to give to a nurse. The family knew they had to stick to the rules to protect others.
Then I got the news from Jo. “Dad’s gone to sleep for good.”
Hearing my soulmate go through the most painful experience of her life, I felt helpless and frustrated.
I wanted to hug her, make her a cup of tea and look after things while she came to terms with a life without her hero in it.
But I knew I couldn’t jump in my car and see her. Just like she had sacrificed those precious final moments with her dad and couldn’t say goodbye.
But you have to think of others and be a good citizen. Only, hang on, it’s okay to get your lover around for a quick bonk.
Professor Neil Ferguson, the guy who instigated the lockdown and lectured the nation on social distancing, happily stuck two fingers up to his own rules.
Inviting his married lover around was an “error of judgment” he said.
We’ve all been falling in line with this top scientist. When he says jump, most of us say how high – and with or without a face mask, Prof?
We trusted his expertise. He was the smartest we had. So what a slap in the face to we ordinary folk when he decides it’s one rule for him and another for us.
It’s a daily fear for many of us with elderly friends and relatives – them being taken to hospital, out of reach and left alone.
For elderly people too, the thought of being left to die alone is too much to bear.
And then the added trauma of funerals, when you can’t even say goodbye to loved ones properly.
Like the family of Mohamed Abdulwahab, who died from the virus at just 13. His devastated family followed the rules, looking out for others.
I would maybe have sympathy if Ferguson had been letting a family member into his house. But his lover?
Could he not use video chats like the rest of us?
Then he thinks we are stupid enough to buy his excuse that it was okay because he was immune, because he’s had the virus – even though we are still not sure if that’s true.
He has made a mockery of social distancing – all because he had no control and only thought of himself. I just hope he hasn’t opened the door to more errors of judgment.
