“We’ve cancelled our family gatherings twice this year already, and now doing it again you are forced to face the time you have lost, and the fact that so much has been lost and you can never get it back.
“The last time we were all together was in December 2019 when we went to Switzerland and my mom turned 60,” Koorts said.Koorts’s stepbrother’s wedding was postponed twice before going ahead in October. Her youngest brother and his wife had twin girls in October. And a lightning-quick visit by her mom and stepdad served only to highlight how her own four-year-old and other brother’s five-year-old had lost their close bond with their granny.
Their pain is shared by Joy Lloyd, a widow who lives alone in a retirement home in Port Alfred in the Eastern Cape, and was set to leave on December 9 to spend a few months in Wales with her two daughters and grown grandchildren, whom she hasn’t seen in two years. “I told them, ‘My goodness, I still ride horses. Why do you think I’m going to fall over?’" said the feisty grandmother, who turns 80 in February.