Angela Mollard: 8 lessons the pandemic taught me about loving

If the pandemic has made us yearn for those we care about it’s also been a privilege to be reminded how much they mean to us and how we might better love them, Angela Mollard writes.

All but one of the people I love most in the world are not near me now.

My eldest daughter is in another state.

My parents and brothers are in other countries.

My two oldest and dearest friends are likewise.

So many of you know what that’s like. You have grandchildren you’ve never met, children stranded in other places, siblings you can’t see. There are eyes you’ve spent a lifetime looking into with no idea when you might again.

For some, it’s worse.

There will be no reunion after “it’s over” just as there was no last hug, and no goodbye.

To have and to hold may be love’s promise – in more than just marriage – but not its certainty.

And yet, if the pandemic has made us yearn for those we care about it’s also been a privilege to be reminded how much they mean to us and how we might better love them.

The status quo rarely affords an opportunity to reconsider our old patterns, or to properly appreciate not just the skeleton of our relationships but the connective tissue which holds them together.

So much of art and music is given over to the fact of loving; very little to the deliberate act of doing so better.

Here’s some things I’ve learned about love in the time of coronavirus:

■ We should never put off conversations with our parents, assuming there will always be another opportunity, or that we might wait to give them our full attention when we see them.

Before the pandemic I would call my mum every Sunday morning as I was driving home from my television appearance on Sunrise. It seemed like a good use of the time but I was driving, often stopping mid journey for a takeaway coffee. My mum didn’t get my full attention and considering how precious she is to me, that wasn’t good enough. Now when I call I am all hers. She deserves nothing less.

The best way to keep in touch with friends and family is through video calls. Picture: Supplied

■ A Zoom funeral isn’t great but it has some merit. When my dear friend Sarah in the UK lost her dad she asked if I’d like to watch Angus’s funeral live via Zoom link. I didn’t hesitate, setting my alarm for 1am. Hearing my friend pay tribute to her wonderful, mischievous Dad – a man who’d always been so lovely to me – was an intimacy I wouldn’t otherwise have experienced. To cry tears in bed as a legend on the other side of the world was farewelled made me feel as if I was sitting in the pew alongside Sarah.

■ For 21 years I’ve largely been able to put my arms around my firstborn. Not now. I miss it, but distance has brought more layers to our relationship. We’ve discussed investing, what it means to be a good person, whether chocolate is fatal to cats and the merits of different leadership styles. Last week she woke me late at night with a text enthusing about the ending of a book I’d recommended. If the purpose of parenthood is to make a little human ready for the world, then Covid has shown me, without question, I fulfilled the brief.

■ Every Friday I receive a link to a song from someone I adore. I send one back.

Columnist Angela Mollard. Picture: Tim Hunter

■ My monthly Zoom calls with my mum and brothers have gone beyond the broad brushstrokes of conversation that occur when we get together. At those times, there is always things to do. Talking openly has meant I genuinely know that my brother in
Japan is concerned about his tourism businesses and that the one in New Zealand is gutted that the pandemic cost him the job he loved.

Last week when tears got the better of me, my bro called out to his wife who grabbed her guitar and she and my niece sang Stand By Me. It was his idea. They’re good men, my brothers.

■ Robbed of four of the five languages of love – quality time, acts of service, physical touch and gifts (you’ve seen A Current Affair’s expose into couriers?) – the one we have left is words of affirmation.

That’s not a bad thing. So much goes unsaid yet most of us blossom when we’re properly seen. I’ve made a point of telling those who are special to me what I appreciate about them. That’s the beauty of Eric Clapton’s Wonderful Tonight – just a man telling a woman that, yeah, she looks gorgeous.

■ Actually, gifts are great right now. My sister-in-law in the UK sent a cheery bunch of flowers to my Year 12 daughter this week and I had a puzzle made from a treasured family photograph for my mum.

Look, I may have got the size wrong and it may currently be taking up her entire dining room table but there is love in every one of those little pieces.

■ Finally, the sound of people I love laughing. I’ve never appreciated it more.

ANGELA LOVES …

NESPRESSO

The coffee maker has added two new blends of pods to its Reviving Origins program including one from the Congo and one from Cuba as part of its long-term approach to revitalising coffee agriculture in ailing regions. They taste great.

TV

Eddie Redmayne is wonderful in Birdsong (ABC iview) a two-parter based on the Sebastian Faulks novel about an English soldier’s memories of a French woman.

HANDSTANDS

I’ve been doing them in the garden with my daughter. Not quite yoga, but still a workout!