Every single person in the UK and across the world have been seriously impacted by Covid-19 and lockdown.
None more so, as we keep being told by the UK media, grandparents.
Being a grandparent is unique and a magical relationship, there is no relationship like it.
Many millions of grandparents have had to endure not being able to see their grandchildren for the last six months, and know how hard it is, not to be able to receive that hug that special cuddle.
Everywhere you turn the media are saying how important grandparents are in children’s lives, and yet there are a sector of grandparents who are totally forgotten.
They are the invisible grandparents.
Just in the UK, approximately two million grandparents are part of this unenviable statistic, behind every statistic there is a human story. A story of unbelievable pain and hurt. Grandparents who are heartbroken, some who can no longer face life without their grandchildren.
Part of that two million statistic are the grandchildren. Grandchildren who have had a precious relationship with their grandchildren until someone decides to break off all communication, other than proven reasons, to deny contact with a grandparent is child abuse.
It is not putting the children first.
It may occur after a separation/divorce when the parents can not come to an agreement over the children, children being left in the middle of adult problems, of which they have no free voice. It could be after a bereavement, drug/alcohols issues, domestic abuse in the home, or it can be when your own adult children decide they no longer want you in their lives.
Do these people ever consider the children?
Whatever the issue may be with adults, they are just that adult issues, nothing to do with the children. No doubt we all have family members that we don’t see eye to eye with, but to break that special link of grandparent to grandchild, is wicked.
So when you next watch the TV with grandparents saying how hard it is not seeing their grandchildren because of a virus, remember that two million grandparents have been affected by another virus for many years, called Alienation. The difference is that there is a cure for one but not the other.
Most grandparents we are seeing on our screens will be reunited at some point, for two million grandparents and grandchildren, lockdown will remain.
Locked in the isolation of estrangement/alienation. Locked in unbearable loneliness, locked in the ticking of the clock.
