Life will begin again...tentatively, nervously, but life all the same

‘Let us turn our thoughts to this day of just triumph and proud sorrow, and then take up our work again, resolved as a people to do nothing unworthy of those who died for us, and to make the world such a world as they would have desired for their children and for ours.

“This is the task to which now honour binds us. In the hour of danger, we humbly committed our cause into the hand of God and he has been our strength and shield.

“Let us thank him for his mercies and in this hour of victory commit ourselves and our new task to the guidance of that same strong hand.”

So said King George VI in his broadcast on May 8, 1945, a day commemorated ever after as ‘VE Day’, or ‘Victory in Europe Day’.

This year’s VE Day – the 75th since hostilities ceased – we will have to do things very differently, a VE Day like no other, as we continue to make substantial adjustments to our way of life.

We have needed to do so, not because of an enemy whose silhouette cast a menacing shadow over much of the world, but because of a virulent disease that leaves so many who suffer it breathless, and has taken hundreds of thousands in its wake.

Like the horrors of World War Two, there are a few who seem perpetually in denial of its horrors, but the vast majority of people are under no illusion that such perils threaten to rob us of so much that we cannot get back.

As I write, I have the words of our prime minister ringing in my ears, who said that the “peak was past”, “that we are on the downward slope” and that “we can only defeat coronavirus by our collective discipline and working together”.

We know that as much as there has been disproportionate suffering borne by many, there are others of us who have found it easier to rise every morning, thankful for small mercies and glad to be safe and well.

The obligation King George laid on his subjects on that first VE Day, to “do nothing unworthy of those who died” is as meaningful for us, surrounded by the dual narratives of heroism and sadness.

Many people across the world are blessed that the most that is asked to make this happen is to simply stay home, protect what is vulnerable, and therefore save lives. But it will do us much good to speak out loud about our griefs too, because they come in many forms and may relatively be as harmful to each.

They are many: a loss of society, a loss of work or purpose, a loss of freedom or independence, a loss of health, a loss of security, of home, of wealth, of well-being, and that is before we consider the terrible grief of those who have been bereaved or left with terrible scars.

But if there is hope in maintaining our commemoration of VE Day this year, it is in hearing the stories of others who lived through things that similarly brought destruction and horror, and seeing that they found a way through it.

Life began again, tentatively, nervously, but life all the same.

And life will begin again for us too.