By Massimo Usai
We have all read poignant stories in these last few days.
We cannot remain indifferent or yet be cynical in moments like these that we are experiencing.
It is not about taking a position in this war or another. It isn’t to favour one country or another. It is about being human and aware that certain things can happen in the blink of an eye without agreeing with what is happening around us.
Remember in February/March 2020? About two years ago.
We found ourselves locked in the house, stuck and fearful and we have so many stories from those day.
An invisible virus frightened us in the last two years. We need to close ourselves in our houses and use all the possible precautions. Instead of you and I, other people would have done the dirty work in isolating, fighting, and creating the vaccine needed to win that battle.
Our task was simple: to resist in the house, read, watch Netflix and chat with friends with video calls.
Today the situation is different; in some corners of the world, on our continent, some people can no longer stay at home who must flee.
Stay at home, become too dangerous.
Also, in this case, people like us have not asked for anything about what is happening.
They wanted and wanted only to get out of the previous nightmare of Covid and not go out to escape because suddenly the house was no longer.
I read a story the other morning about a beautiful girl who was a model until a few weeks ago.
She has a one-year-old daughter, celebrated just a few days ago, and a husband married a few months ago: a photographer.
He took pictures of her, together they had a successful business, and they were happy with the little girl growing up.
She dreamed of travelling with her family to the world as soon as possible because of Covid. The plan was already moving forward, and now she was posting from her car while reaching the Polish border.
As she fled, ” the child’s bed had shaken last night because of a bomb that exploded near our home.”
“I trembled, not only physically, but also emotionally.“, she writes on her Instagram page. “I packed my suitcase, and I left, my daughter. I’m a war refugee from today”.
She left her husband in Ukraine, left her extended family and many friends and gave up and fled.
She has her daughter in the front seat of her car, in suboptimal condition, and it was not what she had dreamed of for so long.
She remains beautiful; her face is always beautiful, but her skin is wet with tears, and from that face, you can read well her suffering, the one she never imagined she would feel.
I’ve read her story, and I feel bad too;
I feel guilty, and I think spending the morning looking for how to find tickets for the rolling Stones’ next tour is a huge fault.
I have remorse of conscience for how I spent the morning.
My heart and soul are broken in two for all people like Nadine.
Their lives are interrupted, and their dreams are broken, but they still have a big hope inside, which is less material than mine in finding a concert ticket.
Still, it is to see her husband and his loved ones again, in his city, in the beautiful house that he left behind and that he does not know if tomorrow there will be again.
Be strong, Nadine; I promise you to be less superficial and do something in the next few days.
I will be active for you and all the people like you who have had to run away.
Escape from a furious madman who, like Covid, must be isolated, fought and eliminated forever.