Where did everybody go?

Hello everybody and welcome back to another blog post, 

I'm just going to be completely real with you right now, whilst staying as respectful as possible to the people whose stories I'm about to tell. If you do not wish to hear this now, I'm not forcing you to read on. It's just that I've not been feeling completely myself this past week and a bit because there's been a lot going on at once and you might have already picked up on that. Unfortunately, I have experienced the deaths of two people in my life, one of whom I've known for a very long time and the other is an acquaintance but also the son of a lady I also knew for a fairly long time. I was contemplating whether or not to post this because this isn't necessarily just about my life, it involves very personal matters in the lives of other people. However, with the news that I'm going to be doing online school for another month and everything else, things have just accumulated so much that it really needs to leave my mind. I'm not going to mention any names because I'm not the one whose grieving right now but I do need some sort of catharsis to express how I feel.

Not that I haven't yet experienced the ending of someone's life before. A few years ago, mine and my sister's childhood friends had sadly lost their dad to Motor neurone disease. It was sad and we were devastated for them but we knew it was inevitable because he was getting weaker and he was gone before we had a chance to see the condition he was in. However, with one of the recent passings, it was perhaps more difficult to see. 

When my family moved to the area 14 years ago, we were welcomed by a very kind old couple, who had lived next door since the time of World War Two. The husband had survived an explosion in battle and forever had a piece of shrapnel in his arm. You could see a photo back of the wife from somewhere near the 40s,  in one of the archives in the village library. This very interesting couple had always been very kind to us. When me and my sister used to give them a slice of our birthday cake, it was always an anxious moment, trying to avoid 2 hours of conversation and Wimbledon tennis, in front of tea and biscuits. We would return home, a short walk down the path, and our parents would say "we're having dinner, are you hungry?" This would be followed sharply by, "no, we've stuffed ourselves!"🤣 We sadly stopped going round theirs during Christmas time but it was always a nice thing to eat a spread of food with them, singing songs, and dancing to the tunes that the husband would conjure up on the piano. It was thus a sad time when the husband began to lose his mind a bit and had to leave the home. The children tried to fill their mother's void of loneliness by visiting regularly and helping out around the house. We even invited the wife around for a roast dinner and she made her own trifle and mint sauce which was really nice. However, with lockdown, things deteriorated quite quickly and old age was creeping in. She was a very smart woman but I don't think she could handle being separated from her family for that long. Then a series of consecutive problems arose where first she had a fall, then she left a pan on the stove unintentionally and one of the neighbours had to come and sort it out, and then she nearly burnt the microwave to singes. She was getting sicker and sicker and one day, the ambulance came to take her to hospital, much to her children's despair. She was probably alone on a bed in some hospital corridor, waiting to be housed. A week went by and she sadly died in hospital before her husband.

I was perhaps more sad that lockdown and the Covid-19 climate had prevented everyone around her from helping. Like my mother, I can't help thinking had we been able to help more, perhaps she would still have more years left in her. However, she was 93 years old and it was just the end of another era. Perhaps that was difficult to deal with.

The other story can be considered more touching and I don't wish to go into too much detail about it because it isn't nice at all. Unfortunately, the son of a woman we knew well died of cancer. I never knew the son, although he did go to the same sixth form college that I'm going to now. However, I did know the lady pretty well because she was one of the photographers who worked closely with my mother's cake business. She too was also an inspiring lady for many reasons but I'm sure that she wouldn't want me to go into too much detail about it so I won't. But, she did come to do a mini photoshoot many years ago that starred me and my sister in it. We were making tart cases and the photos would go on my mum's first website so it was a significant event. She also stayed over for lunch and from there, she and my parents became very good friends. So much so that she came round ours on many occasions. I also wrote about her niece from Holland coming to stay with us back in the summer of 2019. It was really nice which is probably why the event was so devastating. I don't understand why the world can be so cruel to some people sometimes. Especially, to those good people who have not done anything wrong in their lives. Why are they suddenly the sacrificial lambs? I will probably never know.

Anyway, that's what's been going down this week. On top of the stresses of online school, trying to fundraise during lockdown and failing, and not being able to see my friends, I've not been feeling too chippy but that's okay. Sometimes these things happen and we can't continue to cry over the things we can't control. Although it feels like a lot has changed in the past year, with people starting at new schools, new friendships being formed, and new opportunities constantly arising, I do question where everybody and everything went. However, I know that I will get through this even if the world around me feels like a washing machine. I'm strong and stable enough to deal with it and I will see Covid-19 to the end.

Have you ever experienced loss in your life? Let me know in the comments below and I'll be sure to reply to them. I ♡ hearing from you!

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See you next time, 

Bye, 

XOX, Juliette 

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