In a world plagued by Covid-19, everyone has a story to tell

What a difference a week makes.

Last Saturday my son called me at midnight. He was staying with my mum and sister but was due to return to his own home the next day.

He was lying in bed awake, listening to them both coughing. “Are you worried?” I said. “Terrified,” he replied…

So come Friday afternoon I find myself waiting to board a plane back to South Africa.

A striking woman – tall, lean, her tanned limbs glowing – strides past me, then stops when she realises that the queue isn’t moving yet. I watch people watching her.

She’s got that kind of look, like a model, or like we should know who she is. She moves like the world is hers to own, untouchable. We get chatting.

She’s a South African living in Spain, also heading home. “Are you going on holiday?” she asks, smiling behind her mask. “Not exactly,” I say.

“My little sister is in hospital with Covid. She’s got Down Syndrome, and my mum is her carer, but she also has Covid. My son has Covid too. I’m going to help.”

I say these words. They feel so bald, so raw, that these three people I love utterly have caught the disease that brought the world to a halt.

On Tuesday, they all tested positive. By Wednesday, my sister was admitted to hospital with oxygen levels so low we thought there was a fault with the oximeter, as if she’d been pulled from the water half-drowned.

That afternoon I booked to fly, the only thing delaying my departure being the requirement to get tested first. I’m fully vaccinated so well protected, but I know to be careful.

“And you?” I ask this woman who looks like she’s stepped off a yacht.

“Holiday?”

“No. My dad died last week of Covid. My mother is in hospital with it…” she runs out of words, swallows, shrugs awkwardly.

I murmur appropriate things. We look at the rest of the people waiting to board and I wonder about their stories, because nobody is untouchable.

Nobody is beyond hope either: my sister, caught early, is now out of hospital; my mum – once-vaccinated – has been alright to date; my son has youth on his side.

And I’m here, with my family, knowing how lucky I am.