by Vera Grant AMMM      Ireland      17.02.2022

We waited, we prayed and we hoped the outcome would be the same. The same in that Rayan, the five-year-old Moroccan boy would survive as had the twelve Thai boys and their coach, trapped in an underground cave some eighteen months earlier.

I say ‘we’ to include my family, neighbours and friends who living here in Ireland felt so connected to those in a far away land keeping vigil for the safe return of a small boy who had fallen down a well.

Parents like myself possibly imagined that it was their child and felt the pain, the anguish and the fear experienced by all mothers and fathers for their young. But it wasn’t just parents, it was everyone, class mates, teachers, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, neighbours and friends. The sense of community spread and worldwide, united, we waited, prayed and hoped.
Every time I passed the Ipad I pressed the BBC News and the anxiety mounted in reading of the possibility of a landslide.

At the same time whilst trying to digest the graphs and illustrations of the drills boring into the ground my eyes were drawn to those gathered at the top, peering down, helplessly monitoring the excavation of the mountain of rubble now forming part of the landscape and still no sign that they could reach Rayan or even if he was still alive.
Kings, Queens, Presidents and Prime Ministers along with international celebrities shared their distress and pain on hearing that Rayan had been found but had not survived.
They expressed their deepest condolences and sincere compassion to the waiting world. A world united, connected and at one with each other.