in a world split by borders and beliefs, there remains one truth, our shared humanity. yet, as our countries suffer, the connection feels distantly lost.

i find myself seeking the truth in a lot of what is happening in the world, searching for some understanding of even a hint of the sorrow that our people endure. but the deeper i dig, the more i feel the weight of the guilt, the more i start blaming myself for living comfortably while others struggle for survival.

i ask myself what am i trying to achieve with this guilt? what is the point of blaming myself for things that are beyond my control? but somehow, it feels as if this is my own kind of punishment, as though i am honoring their pain by carrying this weight, even if it’s just by feeling it.

it’s hard to sit around, to go through our daily routines, when our brothers and sisters are suffering across the world and we are forced to watch. and slowly, we become desensitized to it all. we become so immune to the horror. we don’t even budge when we hear about it anymore. there’s little to no hope. it’s hard to focus on anything else, knowing others are trying to hold onto what little remains of their lives.

after we’ve scrolled through videos on social media and read articles or watched what’s on the news, we turn the page and move on. it’s as if we’re conditioned to look away. but it doesn’t fade. it lingers in our mind, quiet but overly present.

what hope remains for tomorrow? when every moment is another cry for help. the hope for a future, becomes nothing more than a distant possibility that becomes harder to believe. there is no hope. not if things continue to be this way. no peace. no end. no relief.

so we sit, and wait. that’s all any of us can do now – sit and watch as the world revolves around us. as families are torn apart. as homes, schools, and hospitals crumble into dust, reduced to rubble. until there is nothing left anymore.

imagine a world where you are just another casualty, where the innocence of childhood is wiped away without reason. imagine your world being reduced to numbers on a screen, a pile of dust, where the only trace of your existence is the smell of your blood in the air. and the silence of the streets that were once filled with an abundance of life, no longer the happy memories you once had.

our mind is caught in images we can’t erase. the faces of children who were just on their way home from the playground. or a mother picking up fresh bread from the nothing to left bakery store. her heart lit by the thought of sharing a meal with her family. and then, in one tragic instant, they become memories, their bodies scattered in the streets, as if they never mattered at all.

it’s hard to put oneself in that space and not cry, but how can we not? how can we look away when there is no hope for a better future?

but yet, here we are, watching it all unfold as if we are powerless to do anything about it. but are we really as helpless as we feel? or is it easier to tell ourselves we are? do we simply choose to remain passive, to let this way of tragedy carry us without ever asking ourselves, what am i doing to change this?

we pray, because it feels like the only thing left to do. we ask for strength, for those who suffer and for ourselves, so that we may hold their stories as if they were our own.

and in every quiet moment, we remember them and refuse to let their cries be forgotten. that’s where hope lies, not just in the end to suffering, but in the effort to carry their voices forward, for as long as we can endure.