Five Deaths and Hope…

As part of my field visits, I look up children, interact with them and try to build a bond with them. After my due diligence on the phone, I visited the home of 12-year-old Ananya in Katpadi. Generally, children respond to my questions and are the live wire of the homes. But in this visit, I found Ananya to be more forlorn. She appeared to be physically weak too.

When I was conversing with her mother I asked her why the child appeared to be aloof and disinterested; the mother pointed at five photographs of the deceased on the walls of her home. She told me that in a joint family of eight members, five of them died one after the other at short intervals, sending a ripple of shock, fear and helplessness to the surviving three. It must have indeed shattered a young Ananya to see five deaths in a row. This has had a deep impact on the child and ever since she has been forlorn.

Just listening to the story, I became emotional and even without my knowledge, I was in tears along with the mother who narrated the incident. I could empathise with the child and knew we would need to put in a lot of effort to get her out of her trauma. I realised that this family needed our long-term support to overcome the emotional trauma.  There was a lot of work to be done as a social worker, in making a difference to the lives of several Ananyas who have been impacted by Covid. After each home visit and getting to know the story of the Covid deaths, I knew I was the harbinger of hope. I knew I had been given an opportunity to serve many more Ananyas and get them on the right track for a happy future. As I was  jotting down data and details of the family visit, my hand became still … a chill ran down my spine to think that in 2021, as a social worker, I was distributing essential supplies to homes in that same street in Katpadi. It dawned upon me that this could have happened to me. I counted my blessings as I bade farewell to Ananya and started my bike for the next visit