Being family in COVID
On Thursday the 21st of October at exactly 11.59pm, Melbourne exited the COVID-19 shutdown. With six major lockdowns since March 2020, Melbourne has earned the dubious title as the city that has spent the longest time in lockdown anywhere in the world – but finally it was over. People crammed onto the streets the celebrate. Pubs and cafés opened their doors not waiting another moment before celebrating through connection with the public they had been denied for one hundred and thirty-eight days. Even though the rest of the state has been in and out of lockdowns over the same period, none have been as isolated as Melbourne residents.
The lockdowns have been felt in vastly different ways across the community and even within the same family. The Brooks family spoke with me about the affect that the lockdowns and COVID has had on their extended family. Spread across the state, each has travelled through the last eighteen months differently. We spoke with Karen who lives in Craigieburn, Kate, a resident in Preston, Jack from Diggers Rest, Gaye from Windsor, and Leanne and Robert from Lara.
Karen lives with her husband Gary. A few weeks before the first lockdown, Gary’s father and sister passed away within three weeks of each other. Gary’s mother – ninety-four years old, blind, grieving for her daughter and husband – was about to also be thrown into isolation. Although Gary is retired, Karen was still working to finish out a short-term contract. Because of the risks working on-site, Karen decided to finish out her contract and retire as well, even though this had the potential to affect their long-term financial security.
‘I couldn’t take the risk,’ Karen explains. ‘Gary has severe asthma, so what if I bring COVID back to the house? What if I passed something on to his mum?’
The situation for Karen’s niece Kate is different. As a frontline health worker, Kate has worked tirelessly throughout the pandemic. Kate was working as a midwife at two locations in the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne. Watching the COVID cases and deaths rise day after day, Kate had to stop working in the west in an effort to limit exposure to infected patients and carrying it across to the northern site or her family. With the added pressure of financially supporting her family after her husband’s business was decimated with the first lockdown, losing another part of their income was a huge blow.
‘There was nothing I could do about it,’ she said. ‘Working across multiple sites was clearly shown to be a risk factor in the spread of COVID. Look at all the aged care facilities that suffered because of shared workforces.’
‘I suppose the one silver lining was that there was someone at home to look after our daughter and manage the home-schooling. It was nice to come home to a cooked meal, too,’ she added with a cheeky grin.
While Karen and Kate’s circumstances are quite different, they both had a loss of income that could have long-lasting effects. At different stages in their life journey, both have found the strain difficult to deal with.
‘We’ve planned all our lives to make sure we would be able to have a good life in retirement,’ Karen explained. ‘We grew up poor and watched our parents struggle on pensions. We wanted things to be different for us.’
‘I feel a bit ashamed for complaining, but that loss of two years wages is going to have an impact that we couldn’t plan for.’
Kate, on the other hand, is devastated about the affect the pandemic seems to have had on the Melbourne housing market.
‘We’ve been trying to save a deposit for a house in Northcote, Thornbury or Preston. Every time we felt we were getting close, the goal posts move. Lost wages, a failed business, high rent, and ridiculous prices on bad real estate make it harder.’
‘The last three properties we looked at started at around $650k and all of them sold for two or three hundred thousand above the expected price. We’ve moved twice in the last six months to try and reduce our rent and save more, but it feels like we’ll never get a foothold in the property market,’ she said.
Kate’s brother Jack, on the other hand, has been able to meet the challenges of the pandemic and feels that he will be better off when things go back to post-COVID normal. Working for Australian Maritime Safety Authority in search and rescue has given him unexpected opportunities. He explains,
‘Thankfully, I was able to move into a share house at the very start of the pandemic so I wasn’t living on my own. Because we weren’t allowed to go into the base unless we had a call, I had a lot of time on my hands.’
I started doing paramedicine at uni when I was eighteen, but I switched to nursing after a year. I really don’t remember why, but I graduated and then started working for AMSA. I never worked as a nurse.’
‘With all the time I had available, I decided to go back to uni and finish my paramedics course. I kept working with AMSA while I looking for a grad position, and because of my skills I was able to do COVID relief work in Melbourne. It was hard work, and you spent the whole shift in full PPE, which kind of sucked, but the money was great and I was able to keep studying my masters.’
‘I got a grad position with Ambulance Victoria back in August and now I’m doing the work I want helping people that really need it. I can still do my masters studies online which will help me advance my career.’
Gaye, sister to Karen and aunt to Kate and Jack, lives in Windsor with her husband and two adult children. Gaye has worked at Alfred Hospital radiology for the last fifteen years as a quality control officer.
‘Well, as a government employee, I started working from home at the start of the pandemic and I haven’t returned to the office. To be honest, I’ve really enjoyed it. I can still meet with people via video chat, and I don’t have to compromise my or Tom’s health,’ she said.
‘I do worry about my son, though. Being a medical resident puts him in the firing line, and its not what I thought about when he said he wanted to be a doctor.’
‘He’s had to stay in hospital accommodation because he can’t come home. His dad isn’t very well so Seb coming home is a potential risk.’
‘I hate that my family is separated, although we don’t have any choice. I can’t imagine what its been like for my sister in Geelong.’
Leanne and Robert have been in lockdown with their youngest children. Being in regional Victoria, the lockdowns have been a different from Melbourne, but they have still had a detrimental impact on the family.
‘We’ve been quite lucky in many aspects,’ Robert explains. ‘Neither of us lost work, although Leanne is working from home. Imogen completed Year 12 in 2020 so missed a lot of those rites of passage that were taken for granted before.’
‘Eilish, on the other hand, absolutely thrived in lockdown and loved home schooling. It meant she didn’t have to ‘people’ every day which was good, at least for her.’
The last year has been more difficult for the family, though. Extended separation from their children and family has left tears in the fabric of their lives.
‘Our grand-daughter is two years older. They mature so quickly and we can never get that time back,’ Leanne said.
‘We’re lucky that Mum moved to Lara a few years ago, but she hasn’t seen my sisters much in the last two years. She’s nearly ninety, and the isolation has been hard on her mental health.’
‘We do group video calls and have a trivia contest or watch a movie or something. When it was Imogen’s birthday, the kids were coming for dinner the day the lockdown lifted at 80% double vaxxed, but we had to cancel at the last minute because Eilish and I were exposed to COVID and had to be tested. Imogen was devastated,’ Leanne continues, her eyes filled with tears.
Taking a deep breath, she finishes sheepishly, ‘First world problems, right?’
The extended Brooks family know that overall, they’ve been pretty fortunate through this pandemic. This doesn’t diminish the many things they have had to deal with, often in isolation from each other, and the misses and milestones they will never retrieve.
The pandemic has taken a hefty toll on nearly everyone. It has changed our perspective of family, and if we’re lucky, it has made us realise what is important in our lives. Time together and freedom of movement have become precious things that we crave and have learned to cherish. If we’re really fortunate we won’t forget.
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