It is not an easy time to be a mother. Shuffling out of the house. Slowly. Painfully. Heavy heart, clouded mind. Choking back a deluge of unshed tears. Mourning words unsaid and moments unlived.
One foot dragging slowly in front of the other, barely in motion, yet, steadily pulled away, far away into infinity.
She becomes aware of the, magnetic earth beneath her feverish toes, and the relentless viral force that has claimed her people in their thousands .
A brief pause and the young head turns to reveal the shell of a human face with blazing eyes, scorched lips and crystal tears. A momentary, almost furtive glance. Four little children huddled in a corner.
They would never understand. No hug, no kiss, no reassuring squeeze, no contact, no touch. Then she disappears into the beckoning white van, with the others. It is not an easy time to be a mother.
One would have thought that a giant squid had gobbled up sea and sky, stars and moon, for, thick black ink blotted the landscape.
The monotonous sound of a struggling propeller accompanied the unfriendly note of wood dissecting steely waves.
The smell of fear was everywhere in spite of the salty spray teasing their clammy cheeks.
Salma and her son, wanted to live so they ran away from the terror, from the insanity. They had been a family of eight before the terrorist forages and burning tyre executions.
Now it was one Salma and one son , asleep, on a rickety boat to freedom with four hundred others, fleeing towards education, to work, to hope, to life.
Suddenly a strange commotion and blood curdling screams and gunshots and a huge mass of steel coming towards the rickety boat like a deadly bayonet. A terrible crunching sound, wood splinters and water in the ears in the nose. Throats burning, mouths gasping, arms thrashing, heads bobbing, then nothing.
One Salma, one son, many others fall silent. Their dreams devoured by the inky blackness. It is not an easy time to be a mother.
Deserted streets. Pockmarked walls and shell-shocked people who thought they had seen the worst until they saw the line of black flags looming on the horizon. IS and their barbaric antics , 15 km away.
What does a mother of three girls and one boy do in the wake of such impending darkness?
Run, just gather the family, leave everything behind, and run. Then hope for a miracle.
Motherhood is not easy under the best of circumstances. But when Rule of Law breaks down the vulnerability of motherhood and childhood is grossly accentuated and sadly, exploited.
As we reluctantly try to come to terms with the miserable reality around us, we still see wars and epidemics, poverty and invasion as something that happens to others, not to us. Unconsciously we try to keep the happenings into the category of a story on TV, faces on a magazine, number of dead on a newspaper, a morose column in a journal. The less we mention it the better, because we convince ourselves that if we don't see it, and don't mention it, will disappear, and cease to be part of our world.
But no matter how much we pretend, effects of all the strife are here among us, speaking different languages, from its different faces.
None of us are safe until we are all safe, and we can only urge our leaders to press on with their solidarity with international stakeholders in the quest for the restoration of the rule of law, peace and justice.
Malta might be small in size, but its stature is as big as we make it. While we can only shoulder our fair share of the burden of global human tragedy, our nation's voice should be persistent, insistent and strong in urging the international community to help recreate the peace and stability that fosters dignified lives.
We, on our part can join the unsung heroes of the world who promote and practise compassion, peace and unity in their little circles, in everyday life.
We can be the unsung heroes who see their loved ones in 'The Others'.
We can be the ones who sow the seed of peace today and every day.