Dying normally

More or less everyday in the news now we hear about suicide bombs killing X numbers of people in Iraq. No matter what one think about the war, in my opinion it’s the people, the civilians, living there who are the heroes. Hardly anyone of us can imagine how it would be living in a place where dying normally has become a fantasy.

When most of us hesitate before calling a friend it's not because we think they might be dead.

"Every time I want to call someone I think a million times before I decide to make the call," he explained. "Every time I call someone and the recording tells me that the line has been switched off or is out of the coverage area I immediately think that they might have been killed or kidnapped and I hope from the bottom of my heart that I'm wrong."

When most people worry about their children, they don't worry that their children might grow up without them.

"I'm trying not to think of the moment when my wife will try to phone me and the recording will tell her that my phone has either been switched off or is out of the coverage area and it will be because I've been killed. I'm trying not to think of what she might tell my 2-year-old son or the daughter we're expecting about the father they never got a chance to know."

Last week my colleague heard that a friend had lost eight brothers in the bombing in the Sharja market in Baghdad. When most of us mourn friends or relatives who have died, the list doesn't normally stretch into the dozens.

A very different life, but a life.