Dear friends,
Today marks a sad day, one I will never stop talking about: November 13th. Today marks a day where so many around me lost their lives due to a huge act of injustice. Today marks the day where four years ago hearts broke and shattered, minds were paralysed in fear, where friends lost each other, where children lost their parents and parents their children. Today four years ago, something unthinkable happened, and I was there in the midst of it.
Little did I know what life would be afterwards, and I was the lucky one. I can’t tell you of any other event in my life which had such an impact. I imagine it often as the one which left me closest to broken. I was numb and shattered inside. My journey afterwards was an ugly one, but one where I somehow stayed one foot in the light, where I found Jesus and held on, even though I didn’t know why I was holding on. Half of me sobbed the words out “why couldn’t it have been me instead of them” so many times, half of me lashed out tragically onto myself, half of me lived with terror in the dark…but that other half of me held onto something I didn’t quite understand yet, the Light.
I write this to you today because I will never forget these moments in time, and they haunt me even until today – “don’t worry, papa. your daughter is safe” were the first words I sent to my father, but how many people didn’t get to send the same things to their father? So many beautiful innocent people were laid down that night, leaving this world in an imprint of violence. So many hearts mourn the 13th of November in their every day and for that I am so sorry. I pray to God that each and every one of them are happy in His arms. Though I know all too well that sometimes that doesn’t take away the pain, sometimes we just want to hold our loved ones in our arms, we want them back. I imagine them somehow in my every day, nudging me to continue, pushing me to move forward because I survived and I at least owe this to them.
For today I leave you this memory. This excerpt is from the next day, November 14th, my route to safety. My friends were picking me up and bringing me outside of Paris, I just had to get to them which meant the Metro as everything was closed to cars. I left on the metro in the evening with the words stuck in my head, “we expect more attacks. . .they want to achieve more casualties…” something I had heard the night before.
Metro:
tight hugs goodbye, to be left to myself. Into the night I went, me and my backpack. Terror made the air stink, silence haunted us, and everyone…restless. I had little idea where I was except that the world knew all too well. Exposed to the world was this arrondissement, shaken with violence. I bought my ticket, and went to the metro. I took a seat by the door, unfolded the chair and pressed my back against the wall. My comfort was that no one was behind me, I pressed even harder. My backpack was being held tightly on my lap as I stared out at the broken crowd in front of me – scanning the room almost unconsciously for danger when I realized, that was me to them … we were all that to each other. No one was safe anymore, no one was an innocent bystander…we were all a “what if.” What are they looking at though? Oh. My backpack. Their eyes were glued to my backpack. I wanted to scream that they were safe – that I too was just trying to get to a safe home. But instead I just looked back with my bloodshot eyes. The metro shook, stopped, lights flickered — came to a stop … I can’t remember how many times before I arrived again, into the cold night air. Yet every time that those metro doors opened we all held our breath, on alert. Sometimes all I wanted to do was close my eyes as if I were in a bad dream but I knew to keep them open, ready to run. Where? I still don’t know. But I knew I had to be ready.
“don’t worry, papa. your daughter is safe.”
I write to you four years later, with that same broken heart. But I’ve learned that the same girl who texted those words is still in me, and I must allow her the time she needs to heal, and to grow. These past few days I’ve yearned for some peace, as I cried in the classroom or in church, or all those hours that I slept off panic attacks…but though I yearn for it, and work for it, I cannot allow myself to feel any less for these reactions.
I share these things with you so that if you one day see your classmate wiping away tears, or that boy or girl who always looks tired, or the ones with scars up and down their arms … don’t laugh, don’t judge… love. You have no idea what they’re going through. And never shame someone for these reactions because they need their time, and chances are, they already are beating themselves up enough as it is. Be there for your neighbor, the world is already a cruel enough place as it is.
Today I mourn the loss of 131 innocent victims, and I mourn the peace and joy that was robbed from so many more. Today I am back wandering the streets of Paris in my mind, stopping to see the shattered glass, blood stains, and dropping on my knees…today I cry against injustice.
…
“don’t worry, papa. your daughter is safe….”