It’s 5am, I’m awake and I’m scared. I know I’m not the only one.
Like many, I forced myself to bed around 2am, praying for a Christmas miracle. It was not to be. My letter to Santa has, like so many of my friends’ and peers’ letters, somehow gotten lost in the mail, and now my optimism, my hope, my usual pragmatism, has deserted me. This morning, I’m scared.
I’m scared for the children at the school where my brother teaches, where they have been doing the shoe box appeal this year for those in their own communities instead of in the less fortunate countries they traditionally collected for. They say charity begins at home, but I never thought I’d live to see a time where right here, in the UK, children would be going hungry, reliant on food banks, as a daily occurrence rather than a shameful anomaly.
I’m scared for my French friends, my German friends, the many Europeans who have long called my city home and will undoubtedly wake this morning, if they slept at all, feeling less welcome within their own four walls. And I am scared for my Muslim friends, and my friends whose families emigrated here from India, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Pakistan and elsewhere, who must surely fear that the unspoken motivation behind so many votes to tear our country out of Europe is a fear and misunderstanding of the reality of immigration. Racism is the bogeyman in all our bedrooms this morning, writ large by a section of society that so many of us can’t understand and don’t want to live among.
On a more personal level, I’m scared for my little boy. He’s with me today, in large part, because of the NHS. I don’t mean that in a vague way, an acknowledgment of the wonder and joy our NHS delivers families every day when it brings new life into the world. No. My six-year-old was born with a rare health condition that nearly claimed his life as a baby, and he was treated by the world’s best specialists at the NHS’ Great Ormond Street Hospital, a place where miracles really do happen. I’d imagine there are a lot of scared families at GOSH this morning.
I’m scared for my partner, and the millions of people like him who rely on safe access to medication every day to stay healthy, even alive. As a Type One diabetic, he is well only because he has access to insulin, and he and his fellow patients know that people are dying in the USA because they can’t afford those very same drugs. I’d imagine everyone with a serious illness, reliant on our NHS, will be feeling scared this morning too.
How are you feeling? Are you scared like me? Perhaps not. Perhaps you voted Conservative. I think all of us who voted Labour, Lib Dem, SNP or Green need to take a moment and consider our own myopia. Much of the left thought we would never leave Europe. We could not envisage a Trump presidency, let alone a resounding victory for Boris Johnson. The figures suggest that we, all of us, know more people of a differing political viewpoint than we might have believed, and it is time for us to have those conversations. To debate. To speak openly and calmly with people we don’t necessarily agree with, outwith the echo chambers of liberalism that we need to admit we exist, and have felt comfortable, within. It is easy to feel hopeless, in our fear, but now more than ever, we need to take a more compassionate approach to those with whom we disagree. Anger, after all, rarely changes minds.
I have always believed that we should vote for the least fortunate person we know, the one who most needs assistance. And this morning, through my fear, I hope that each and every one of us who believes that gives some thought to who that person is, and vows to hold them close, to be the safety net they may well need now without them having to ask.
Who are you scared for? If each of us can take responsibility for one other person who is in a less fortunate position than ourselves today, now, perhaps humanity and compassion can win after all. After all, when we’re scared, hope is all we have.
