When I was around 2 or 3 years old, the civil war was not over yet. It was 1989 -1990.

Though I was born in the city, my parents would take me and my brother to their village where they abandoned us because we were in school holiday. They did that because they had to return to the city to earn money to support us.

My brother and I always enjoyed our time in the village. In fact, we were made to be ones of those village kids, going into the jungle, hunting for spiders, snakes, and wild birds for eating.

During rains, we would go to the rice paddies looking for frogs, crabs, or even snakes. We caught them, we prepared them, we cooked them, and of course, we enjoyed them.

Life was not always fun. Every now and then, there was military conflicts between the leftover Khmer Rough hiding in lower ground and government soldiers deployed up on the hills close to our village. Explosions, RPGs sounds, AK 47 shootings could be heard. Everyone was scared, and everyone had to find a place to refuge.

As a young boy, I was very scared. My aunty, my grandma held me tight in love and in tear for they wouldn’t know if we all could make it tonight. I was too young to understand everything. All I wanted was to go back to the city where I believed was safe for me and everyone.

People feared and got scared when they heard the starts of gun sounds or some type of explosions Everyone’s ears were always ready to listen.

Today, we are facing similar thing, fear. However, there is no sounds to trigger fear in us, but the unknown, and the uncertainty of tomorrow are still affecting everyone’s feeling.

This time, we don’t look around to spot any black smoke so we can run for our life. We now have to look at our hands to see what we have touched, who we have talked to, and where we went. We meet our own brothers and sisters. We look at them as if they were not our own siblings. We feel reluctant to hold their hands, to come close to them, or even to speak to them.

The fear we had over 30 years is tangible. I meant we could see something, hear something, and feel something. Now this type of fear in everyone is that we don’t know where it is, we can’t hear it, we can’t see it, and we can’t feel it. All we can do is waiting to hear the update of cases confirmed on our social media.

Similar to other countries, some of our government’s actions are to close several places to prevent the spread of the virus. Economic stability can be expected to be affected especially the micro – business people. The groups who are likely to be affected are the ones who live from hand to mouth.

Unlike the fear for death during military war, this fear still allows us to have options to choose. For example, those who have plenty can be generous because this virus-crisis everyone should learn that nothing important but their life. This is also an opportunity that we can share the love of the eternity, and the salvation of the souls. I am pretty sure that we all can learn something during hard – time as well. What have you been fearful of, and what have you learned?