They come when images from the news invade my thoughts.

The farewells at the railway station in Kyiv, when fathers sob while saying goodbye to their tiny children, gloved and parcelled up in padded parkas, bewildered.

The cats and dogs huddled with their humans in the bomb shelters. Scared and uncomprehending and vulnerable. So very vulnerable.

And here at home, similar distressing scenes. Big dogs carried on small shoulders across flooded bridges. Small dogs plucked from rooftops and taken to safety. Cows floating on the flood, mooing in terror.

The ruined homes. The possessions once precious now cast into heaps of rubbish. The pictures, the books, the toys. The memories.

The tears come slow and salty when I hold Billy tight, all warm and dry, and thank provenance that he and I are fed and safe. Sensing something wrong, he offers a lick on the ear.

This past week has been confronting. There have been times when I've had to switch off, turn away from the news, find distraction in the normally crushing routines that in these times of uncertainty have become the scaffold of normality. The washing, the ironing, the vacuuming offer refuge from a world gone mad.

War is not new, not for me. Born just 14 years after World War II ended, it has backdropped the life of my late boomer generation ever since. Only by good fortune has it not reached in and upended life in this country.

India-Pakistan, Vietnam, Israel, Iran-Iraq, The Gulf, Afghanistan, The Falklands, Georgia, Chechnya, The Balkans, Afghanistan again, Iraq again, Yemen ... the list seems endless.

But somehow, this war in Ukraine seems more relatable. The faces look familiar. They could be people from down the street. Likewise, the clothes, the streetscapes, the cars.

The pets look familiar, too. The terriers, the retrievers, the border collies, just like Billy. That could be our world burning under a rain of missiles and artillery shells.

Familiarity when looking into the haunted eyes of fleeing children doesn't breed contempt, rather compassion. But it also raises questions about why we look upon this war differently to the others which have wrought the same pain and suffering in a grotesque continuum since the lend of World War II.

Why we are so often blind to the torment wreaked upon those who look different to us, whose worlds are more exotic?

Is it subconscious racism at work? Quite possibly. We need to look deep into our souls to find the answer.

Right now, we need to accept that it's OK to shed tears.

I remember the words of a paramedic after the death of a firefighting helicopter pilot an hour after a fellow journalist and I had interviewed him.

We were both in shock. A flood of tears come when when I was asked if I was all right. My apology for blubbering was met with words that have stuck with me ever since:

"It's absolutely normal to be upset. I'd be worried if you weren't. It's what makes you human."