OPINION: Hope for better times as we head into 2021, writes Karen Anderson

I’m writing this the day after it was announced that we are going back into lockdown on Boxing Day. As you will know if you happened upon my column around Easter, my hubby’s Mum and two of his siblings and their families are all in the Newcastle area, so despite having not seen any of them since October 2019, we would not normally have expected to visit at Christmas.

And I can’t help but feel slightly relieved that my Mum’s dementia overwhelmed her nearly three years ago and she didn’t have to go through the isolation that she would have suffered had she been spared and settled in the care home she was briefly admitted to after her long stay in the RNI.

But not one year of my life has gone by where I did not spend part of Christmas Day in the company of the sister that’s the next one of my five older siblings. I remember the chaos of six kids in our living room in Hilton with pillowcases with a few presents and a clementine each. I have no idea how they managed as Mum was always stretching pound notes until they squealed!

My hugging compulsion went into overdrive, but we resisted, and I headed home knowing that it may well be a not-so-New Year before I see her again.

As adults, sometimes I’d stay for the day and enjoy playing with my nieces as they were enchanted by all their new stuff, and spending time with Mum and Dad who went to sis for their meal. The year Dad died, it was to help her distract Mum from the empty chair. The year after, I was introducing my own boy to Christmas. Over the following years it didn’t always go well as we didn’t understand the sensory overload Christmas can force on autistic people.

Today, we went to lunch as always and wished our server friends well as they face the difficult prospect of being furloughed again, desperate to give them a hug as we always do at this time of year. Then we had a surreal wander around the Eastgate Centre – packed with Christmas shoppers mostly in masks but not always social distancing or following the one-way system (that really bugs us). And we finished stopping by my sister’s to exchange gifts on the doorstep. I haven’t seen her in person since we had a meal in town for her birthday in September. My hugging compulsion went into overdrive, but we resisted, and I headed home knowing that it may well be a not-so-New Year before I see her again.

Of course, we will text and call each other and stay in touch, we may even go for a walk if it is within the rules (which I haven’t quite got to grips with yet). But I need to be thankful that we are still well and able to look forward to a different time, hopefully not to far into the future, when we can sit in one or other of our living rooms putting the world to rights until the wee small hours like before.

So please, try to find some joy over the period. Watch a favourite programme, do a favourite hobby, talk for an hour on the phone with the sister (or anyone else) that you miss desperately. Smile and laugh if you can as we make our way into 2021 in the hope of better times to come. Every good wish for the New Year.

Karen is Mum to an autistic teenager and campaigns for the rights of unpaid carers to be supported in their caring role and involved in the decisions that affect their lives and the lives of the people they care for. You can find her on twitter @Karen4Carers.

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