Tracking not included

 

A friend of ours lost her parents recently, tragically.

Covid times meant the funeral was a very closed affair attended by just about no one. Tough when they came from a small rural town, the type of place where everyone's lives interconnect all over the place.

We walked up to the corner where our street arcs around to meet theirs, where the hearses would stop for a couple of moments before heading on to the cemetery. There were already cars parked along both sides of the quiet road, stretching away up the hill the cars would climb soon enough.

People stood in small groups, most between the parked cars, a few clustered at the bottom of the driveway.

A few cars came and went at the intersection, and then the ubiquitous white van. 

Our streets are no different to all the others of Sydney, quiet mostly, quieter than usual with so many people working from home, not working. More often than not the only vehicles we see are delivery vans, jam packed with parcels threatening to burst out from behind every window. 

The Australia Post van trundled to a slow stop in the driveway next up the hill, the driver hopped out and there was that familiar beep as he scanned the barcode of a small box and headed up the drive. A young woman jogged after him, the neighbour, she had been standing on the front lawn socially distanced from her grieving friend.

The driver got back in his van, did a slow u-turn, mindful of so many people about, and turned up our road. He stopped about three houses down, hopped out, beep, parcel at the door and back to the van.

I used to think often at the car accidents we attended that the scene filled the world when you arrived, mess everywhere, people everywhere. Bit by bit we would put everything back as it should be until the last of the glass and metal were swept away. And then the traffic would start to flow again, tyres rolling over the same piece of tarmac. Often it would rain, and even the smells would disappear, so that you could almost believe such a thing had never happened.

Life just goes on, regardless of everything else. Tragedy, unspeakable pain and loss. And a parcel at the neighbours, and another tomorrow. Life goes on.