How music, poetry and art are
getting me through isolation
(along with ‘a little help from my friends’)
MARGARET PATRICIA EATON
‘Pilgrimage’ (see text box)
is from “Celtic Trilogy’, a
poem inspired by my Irish
roots and which won first
prize in the New Brunswick
Writer’s Federation Literary
Competition in 2009. It
references my visit to the
cemetery in Midleton, Co.
Cork, in search of the graves
of my great-grandparents who
died within one day of each
other during the 1918-1919
Spanish ‘Flu (H1N1 virus)
Pandemic, which infected 500
million and claimed the lives of
50 million world-wide.
Now 102 years later, I am
approximately the age my
great-grandparents were, living
in isolation in the midst of the
Covid-19 Pandemic, which by
mid-April had resulted in over
130,000 deaths world-wide,
Margaret Patricia Eaton has contributed to PrimeTime
since 2012. Credit: Karen Casey Photography
with over 2 million infected.
But while there are similarities
between the pandemics, there
are differences. For one thing,
the death toll to date, while
horrible, is much lower than
that of the Spanish ‘flu and the
recovery rate appears better.
And although isolated, we are
well-connected through social
media, while in 1918 there was
a considerable time delay before
news of my great-grandparents’
deaths was received by their
daughter (my grandmother),
then living in Guernsey. But
today I am in contact with
Irish, English, Nova Scotian
and American cousins, and
friends all over the world,
including China.
I’m also in daily contact with
my daughter, Tara Baxendale,
in Toronto, who’s been sharing
her gift of music, with a song
a day on YouTube, since the
crisis began. She has made me
smile, laugh, sometimes cry,
and uplifted me with music that
calms my anxiety and renewed
my appreciation of the power of
music to relieve stress, which
harms immune system and
so now is more important
than ever.
I think isolation has stirred a
sense of gratitude. Now when
18 PrimeTime SUMMER/ÉTÉ 2020