It has been a very dark week in Manchester. Every families worst nightmare has been acted out in the Media in an almost sanitised way.
Apart from the heroic efforts of people offering help and comfort in peoples darkest moments, it has been relentlessly heartbreaking.
The most difficult thing was for me was looking on social media and finding people begging for information about loved ones who were missing and knowing that the inevitable bad news would arrive at any moment.
I feel for the families who have lost loved ones because it was so unexpected. No one ever expects to drop someone off at a concert and not expect them to return home safe. Equally no parent ever expects to be blown up waiting for their children.
It’s not only the horror of what happened that keeps going around in my head, but it’s also the fact it could quite easily have happened to our family.
Some of the people caught up in this tragedy I know, I have worked with them and that is what makes it so hard. As much as I applaud the sentiment of carrying on regardless and the outpouring of “we will not let these terrorists beat us” a little piece of me has been quietly altered.
I am not quite as understanding, I am not quite as forgiving in spite of all the outpouring I have seen and peoples demonstration of solidarity.
Don’t get me wrong I am all for treating people how I would like to be treated and that will not change.
What will change is that I have experienced first hand what has been happening for years in the middle east, the senseless slaughter of innocent civilians on a daily basis with no end in sight and that maybe is a good thing.
People have been horrified by this evil act in our city, but please share a thought for the 500,000 casualties in Iraq alone who have suffered a similar fate since the start of the 2003 conflict.
So as you go to bed tonight please say a little prayer for those families who all over the world are going to bed broken-hearted because some have lost the most precious thing they have, their partner, their children or their entire family.
John D Eccles 
I’m sorry if you’ve lost friends or acquaintances John.The country has been stunned by yet more senseless killing, this time directed towards children enjoying a night out. I have problems getting my head round the fact that someone born here could commit an act like this but I suppose it’s possible we’re blamed for the death of family of his in Libya. The reasons will come out eventually as I hope will the name of whoever it is that is agitating our young men of middle Eastern extraction.
Hugs
So very sorry yet hard to find words that will be meaningful. Seems it’s all the more shocking when unexpected (Manchester? Ariana Grande?) and when so many young, relatively innocent and tragically beautiful faces were lost. The end of innocence, I have told myself on several occasions now since the latest wave or horror began. Yet, as you point out, it is a drop in the bucket compared to Iraq, Syria and this morning, more lives in Egypt. It leaves me feeling empty, somehow. Maybe as you say, a little piece is quietly altered.