Rushing to get baby milk, driving past the refugee tents in Berg, Bavaria I noticed something out of the corner of my eye.  Two families queued at the makeshift gates requesting entry.  They looked exhausted and grey.  I hope relieved and reassured.

One woman in a lilac headscarf and thick tights was holding a baby, my daughter’s age. My baby  is wrapped up snug and warm in her crib and this woman’s baby is out in the November night waiting with his/her family for admittance to the camp.

I then walked to the local Rewe City and was queueing behind two Syrian men.  One was older, I remember his piercing amber eyes and when he saw I had baby milk he insisted I go ahead of them.  I nodded my thanks and began to cry.

I was seeing humanity at its very best.  Here was a man, having experienced at the very least the terror of war on his doorstep, still able to show compassion and kindness.  I shook his hand and mumbled something stupid and inane.

I have been numb the last few days.  Talking the talk, writing, blogging and tweeting about the devastation in Paris, Lebanon and around the world but I wasn’t feeling it.  I could empathise and be angry but I was immune to actual sadness.

Tonight, it hit me like a freight train.  I don’t recognise my world anymore.  I’m living somebody else’s life and I don’t like it.  What the hell has happened?  I’m frightened, confused and dismayed.  I feel wasted, banal and emotionally underfunded.

And then a bloke lets me go first in the queue and I think, perhaps we are going to be okay.  Perhaps, we can do this together.