Dear Boris,
Congratulations
You’ve managed get me to do something that no other politician has ever managed; you’ve made me angry enough to write about you, oh the pitiful irony..
I treat the majority of your profession with the kind of distain I reserve for dog poo on the pavement … I don’t like it and I actively avoid it at all costs but yet again here we are...
You are the human embodiment of everything I dislike in a politician you’re self-serving, deceitful and clearly not interested in the people of Great Britain so I’m going to tell you a story…
A story that doesn’t have a happy ending…
You announced the countrywide lockdown on 23rd March, this left my infant son & wife in another country for 6 weeks and isolated me from my wider family.
My wife and child returned to me on April 9th and we enjoyed a 2 week reunion before I made the difficult and technically prohibited journey to my childhood home in Birmingham.
My father’s health had taken a serious decline due to his battling Oesophageal Cancer which had metastasised to his Liver.
I did the journey in record time due to the lack of traffic 1hr 40mins (one benefit of enforced stay at home orders I suppose) - arriving just in time to drive my father to hospital for the first of two visits in lockdown number 1.
I still remember the look of relief on my mum's face as I walked through the door on that day. It was like she didn’t have to bear it all on her own for a little while and I vividly remember sobs of joy from my 66-year-old father at my arrival. Impossible to forget, irrevocably imprinted on my life forever. As a man, he was a rock and pillar of my life. To see him that vulnerable has changed me, for better and worse.
The next 3 weeks are a mix of DIY jobs to prepare for his return from hospital, helping my mother to keep busy, FaceTime calls with Dad in hospital as we could not visit and FaceTime meals with my son & wife. May 23rd would be the next time I would physically touch them - 3 days after your "Bring Your Own Bottle To Work Meeting" in the garden.
Dad returned from hospital 2 weeks after his first admittance in April, regular blood transfusions had helped to plateau his health but serious decisions regarding a high risk & high dose Radiotherapy treatment loomed.
He would return to hospital again 2 weeks later for further treatment for internal bleeding and testing - he would leave hospital at the end of May for the final time; gaunt, frail but thankful that he would no longer have to endure hospital with no contact from his devoted wife and the loving embrace of his friends and family.
The final 3 weeks of my father’s life were heart-breaking and beautiful; He was taken too soon and with so much to enjoy in retirement.
It was however beautiful to see what 42 years of marriage looks like in the most visceral of meanings - for better and for worse; caring for your dying husband as my mother did at home with little support and a ban on gatherings and socialising classes as some of, 'the worst of times' in my book.
My father fought hard; harder than many will ever have to fight – from what I could tell at the end; he wanted to be remembered as a fair and kind man; for him the world was a beautiful and intriguing place but ultimately not one for him to know any longer … I will never forget him asking me in the ravages of Cancer;
“Why Me?” - for which as his son, to this day, categorically and without hesitation I have no fucking clue as to;“Why Him?”
We had a whole bedtime routine around his infirmity in the last few weeks of his life - my furloughed brother who was trapped for weeks in a 2nd floor flat in London with a pregnant wife and a 2-year-old for the Lockdown 1; finally risked the unknown and was able to come and visit my dad in that time.
We would read bedtime stories with my niece - whilst dad attempted to drink strawberry milkshakes laced with calories in an attempt to stop the impossible which, was the unbearable tide of weight loss he went through. Watching a man so big and full of pomp in life, wither like that is one of the most harrowing episodes of those months in lockdown 1.
By End of May / beginning of June - his liver failure had become apparent; the jaundice and weight loss had become too much to bear and he talked, walked and ate less; he slept more than he was awake.
Dad clung to life for 13 more days in June - his final words to me were just before bed as I gave him a kiss goodnight;
“You had a lot of garlic son?”
As he lifted his pallid cheek off the pillow I caught a glimpse of his smiling face and he mustered the tiniest of winks - a wicked sense of humour will always be one of my enduring memories.
The final words I heard him say - although directed at my son not at me were,
“Happy Birthday Rufus” - he died the next day.
Dad had a tremendous moral compass and a sense of right and wrong more highly charged than most people I have ever met. For example, he once made my brother return via post an ashtray he “acquired” from a youth hostel in Germany because
“Any way you paint this son, that’s theft” when he found it hidden in his bag.
He knew he didn’t want his youngest son having to deal with the grief that would come from dying on his grandson’s birthday. My dad clung to life with every fibre of his being because not dying on Rufus’s birthday was the right thing to do, at least that’s how I choose to see it.
I left my childhood home so I could enjoy my son’s birthday, I feel guilt and sorrow for not being with my Mum when he died but I feel relief that I didn’t witness it for myself. My memories of him through my life thankfully obscure the majority of the last three months of his life.
The following nine months are a cavalcade of heartbreaks, missed moments and trauma.
We had a funeral - which only 10 people could attend, we buried my grandmother in the first weeks of that 1st lockdown; where my infirm father couldn’t leave the house so my mother like the bad-ass-boss she is; went to the crematorium on her own with the vicar. My father put on his best suit and sat at home in silence, in solidarity with my Mother who said farewell to her last parent on her own; a twist that we as a family cannot forget and acts a cruel prequel to my mother's loss.
And as if by magic Boris we turn back to you; for the last time. My story here will not be the last of this kind, there are tens of thousands who have had much harder times than me, I am just prepared to lay it out for you to read (I realise my own narcissism is hilarious).
I hope in many ways it’s the first of many cathartic stories that truly tell and capture the pain, grief, trials and tribulations that we the people undertook in these most dysfunctional of times.
All in a desire to “Do the right thing”
Whilst almost all of us abided by the rules, you saw fit to ignore them, you had a garden party as my father slowly bled to death, 6 months after my father’s death, you had a Christmas party along with 3 other departments in your government.
You offered “heartfelt apologies” for what happened on the 20th May - well I don’t accept it and you don’t get a pass on your rank hypocrisy simply because you put on a sombre tie and utter some well-worn platitudes.
My heart is broken from watching my mother bury her mother and husband inside of 3 months of each other. I was robbed of a Christmas with my brother and his family because of lockdown 3 before they moved to another country and the thing I craved more than anything was the touch and embrace of my friends and family for comfort and respite.
Sadly, for us there was no magic garden where the rules did not apply.
You asked us to follow and recognise the part we all had to play - from where I’m sitting you only ask of others and not of yourself.
I don’t want your pity either - I’m telling you a story, it doesn’t have a happy ending nor does it require your pseudo-apologies
Shame on you, a pitiful excuse of a leader.
May you be forever judged by your actions because your words are just as worthless as them.
All the best
Andrew
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