Tonight I sat down to write a post about my eldest daughter approaching her 4th birthday and found I couldn’t.
Like lots of you I have seen some photos the last few days that I wish I hadn’t. Photos of families, of sorrow and of death. One photo in particular of a child who will never see his 4th birthday.
That small child, alone and cold who left this world in such a tragic way.
I don’t watch or read the news very often. You see I’m the type of person who seems to absorb things too much and a horrifying story ( particularly any which affect children) can play on my mind for months. As a form of self preservation I guess I just avoid it.
Sometimes it’s unavoidable. Like this week. I almost closed the browser window when the image popped up as I knew I would not want to read what had happened. I forced myself to look. To read.
It’s important that we do not look away when it comes to this.
This is happening. Around of us. It’s part of our lives now. We need to learn as much as we can about it and decide for ourselves. To find out how we can help. To know the unspeakable terror and sadness these poor, poor people must be feeling right now.
The sorrow of a father who lost his children and wife whilst trying to find freedom. For him then to see his sons lifeless body on every newspaper and TV channel. To know this has happened to someone else is overwhelming in itself. To feel the sadness and tears creep onto your face for a child you did not know. Imagine it was you. Imagine it was your child.
To be so scared of where you are and what may happen to your family that you are willing to risk all of your lives in a little dinghy on a rough, open sea.
I can’t imagine that kind of fear.
My children tucked warm in bed I hope will never know that kind of fear.
So instead of writing the post I shed some tears for an innocent boy called Aylan and the many others who have lost their lives and I wrote this.
I also did what a lot of you have probably done today and looked for ways to help, this article from The Guardian is full of ideas, click here.
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