Now that I have experienced “aloneness” for
the 14 months since my wife died I have a deeper understanding of the
devastating effects that losing one’s home, possessions, country, and for
children, their caregivers, must have.
When I read, see and listen about the human
tragedy that is unfolding in the Middle East and North and East Africa I have
some difficulty in comprehending the enormity of the devastation and the
inhumanity of it all.
My imagination fails me when I try to put
myself in the place of a child (particularly a girl) lost with no one to turn
to for the normal care that would be expected. Having to scavenge for food,
shelter, clothing and for just the basic necessities to live, must be
absolutely traumatic.
Add to all this the dawning realization the
child must accept and the gnawing fear experienced, that there is no “family”
to provide that most basic of human needs, nurture – Love.
To be in such a situation is almost
incomprehensible. Not to have the emotional support or nurture that is so
necessary for any child’s development is beyond belief. Not to ever get a hug or a kiss.
The long term effects will be etched on the
child’s psyche and affect how they react to others and the World in general for
the rest of their life – where ever that happens to be.
And we – the people of this world - are the cause. Why? A “belief” that I am
better than you? A belief that my “God” is better than your “God”? A belief that money is the only important
thing?
While I, as a mature adult, have my adult
children to support (for their loss of a mother) they in turn support me. This
is as it should be. We are, as human beings, social animals and are “wired” to
support each other.
As the English poet and sermonist John
Dunne wrote in the 1600s:-
“No man is an island, entire of itself;
every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed
away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well
as if a manor of thy friends or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes
me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom
the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
- Any man’s death diminishes me, because I
am involved in mankind -.
