THINGS WE TOOK FOR GRANTED

Abena Adobea: Hello, how have you been?
Obaa Duffie: Am blessed and enjoying the grace
Abena Adobea: It been a while just checking up on you?
Obaa Duffie: Charlie, I am hanging in here. The pressure from work and the traffic in the town is crazy!

These were the conversation most of us had for months if not years and never really made time for family and friends.  We found it easy to use work, school, and other private engagement as an excuse not to engage in family activities, attend social events such as old school meetings, club/association meetings, funerals, and weddings because we are tired.

Siblings have resulted in the use of  WhatsApp platforms to interact since work and other personal activities do not allow for frequent visits nor do nephews and nieces enjoy good family time with Aunties and Uncles. While families are using technology to keep family bond, gossip in our churches and societies have worsened the situation making us more anti-social beings.

This has made isolation the only escape route for lonely individuals, people are unable to genuinely open up to neighbors, work colleagues nor Church members when faced with difficult situations. To make matters worse, the world’s evasion of the unseen enemy COVID-19 has exposed the cracks in our family system and society as a whole.

Today, under lockdown we heard the news of the passing of some friends, families, and neighbors and wished to go and greet as custom demands to console the bereaved families and lend our support but am sorry lockdown means stay home, be safe and observe social distance to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Come to think of it, do we really care about these people? And want to show them love or it is because we are locked down and are feeling lonely? or because we have excess time we do not know what to do with; so we must as well pretend to care for the people we never made it for.

Interestingly the coronavirus pandemic has exposed the little things we took for granted. Not long ago we were too busy to even call our own parents, to the point that some of us even looked too busy to die. Now during the lockdown, people are running out of data and call credit, boredom is killing us and we are tired of reading books, what we need now is to leverage on the bridges built through the relationship we nurtured in time past.

Mmmmm relationships nurtured from the past? Oh, yea.  Not all of us were busybodies carrying the world's problems on our shoulders. Some did live!  And oh yes they lived, loved, laughed and mingled, today though locked down means restricted moment these people are the ones filled with love, fun and beautiful memories from the encounters of the past.

However, it is not too late to create memories too. Though movement is curtailed, check on your immediate family, call them, share WhatsApp joke, read and share Scriptures together via Facebook messenger, Twitter, Instagram, and any other technologically approved medium.

Like Mahatma Gandhi said,  be the change that you wish to see in the world.