Tuesday 8 September 2015

Another Photo that fills me with pitty

Here we see a mum carrying a son that appears to be younger than my own 3 month old. She appears to have only one back pack which probably contains all of here and her sons belongings. I cannot see a husband and father in the picture. He may have already passed the photographer or may be the chap adjacent in the background. Or this mother may be travelling alone.

I will try to find a better quality image.

I know how hard it is to look after a new baby. Yesterday I had the worst headache I have had for a while. I knew I still had to get home and look after my boy despite how rough I was feeling. Parents hate seeing their children cry. They want to comfort them. My wife and I have a range of tools we can use to settle him. This mother seems to just have her back pack. Presumably in this back pack is everything she can carry for him and for her. She's going to a truffle to keep him happy.

Carying a baby on a long journey is also going to be incredibly hard. A child's this young, can't even sit up straight, they are incredibly vulnerable and need constant care and attention. They can't eat solid foods and depend on mothers milk or formula feeding many times a day. This mother will have to be feeding him while on the move. And this is not a journey of an hour or two. This is days, possibly weeks.

A picture is worth a thousand words. But it is only a snapshot in time. It doesn't tell the whole story, our imaginations will create that story based on what we have learned already. I can only imagine how challenging this time is for everyone leaving their destroyed communities to search for a new place to settle.

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