to Australia. Back home to her busy life of volunteering and gardening and friends. Two granddaughters to spoil. It feels like an age ago since she left, a time when this horrid virus was a problem in far-flung Wuhan, China – remote enough to awaken interest and alarm at the Twitter feed but nothing to panic about, and definitely nothing to suggest a full-scale interruption of the year we had planned. How were we to know that less than a month later countries would start shutting their borders and airports? The questions began around that time and since then have never relented. What if I’d extended her stay? It was a simple case of exiting to Oman and coming back, wasn’t it? What if she’d asked me if she could stay? Would either of us survive a lockdown together? Was she better off being in the comfort of her own home in Australia? I’m so aware of my mum’s mortality. All her life, she’s had the health and fitness of someone half her age, dabbling in Taebo and aerobics and even hiking. But there were moments during her visit – not more than a split second or so, slowing down to catch her breath when she never used to before – that told me she may actually be getting older, like everyone else’s parents. I see her, what, once a year? In my mind I have an idealized image of her when she could still drive a car and didn’t need help doing things like mowing her own lawn. Not 79 years of age. Now I regret not forcing her to let me teach her to use the internet properly or getting completely comfortable with all the features of her smart phone. If I’d known how much she’d need the technology during the COVID-19 lockdown, I would have made the time. I only know that no longer will I let a day or two go by without calling her. Or let little annoyances cause us to lash out at each other. Each conversation with her now is a gift. The thought that at her age she is highly vulnerable to the horrible symptoms of coronavirus keeps me awake at night. I know she is self-isolating and being a model citizen, following the Australian government’s rules to the letter. This is her “responsibility to the rest of the community,” as she sees it. I know she stays away from the grandkids because she doesn’t want to put them at risk. But I worry.
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