This was my middle daughter Hero’s year, the hard work of 3 long years in Birmingham University studying English and drama was coming to a climax. The dissertation was being finally honed, the graduation dress being sought and plans afoot for a new beginning , on the lookout for graduate jobs and hopefully a relocation to a new city and a new life.
Now all those plans are parked up as Corona virus changes the landscape, the dress and the fancy meal planned after are shelved, the best she can hope for is a virtual graduation with a celebration pencilled in for some time in the future.
Not only that but back home with mum and dad in the front room wasn’t what was planned or envisaged. Hero summed it up best when she likened it to losing your house through fire “ one moment you are in your home making plans to go out with your friends and enjoying the last days of student life then next second you have left all that behind to up sticks back to the family” no time for goodbyes, no last minute drinks with friends and housemates. A way of life you had become accustomed to snatched before time from your very grasp.
Not only that but the future is now a lot less defined for the class of 2020, the jobs that should have , would have been offered are now on hold. The plans to relocate to Cardiff now just a pipe dream. I have tried to reassure that her plans have not been scuppered merely delayed but it is scant consolation to someone keen on forging forward with their career.
Hero acknowledges there are people in far worse positions than herself, those who have lost love ones must come first, those who have lost livelihoods, businesses and jobs and there are many. But while thinking on these please spare a thought for the class of 2020