Yesterday's events were heartbreaking ... I was so busy binge watching 'Scandal' that I didn't read about it until almost 3.00 and was shocked,and very very disheartened.
We went to France for Vincent's sabbatical and fell in love with Paris. Last week he was saying we should go back there one more time and when I asked him why, he said we should learn up the language and go to more remote areas in France really experience the country at its rustic best...
Me, not so enamoured with the countryside. Not because I don't like it, but because Paris took my heart in one day.
We arrived early in morning on the 19th of June 2012, and after a quick rest, ventured out into the city. We took a walk on Rue Lepic , the street our apartment was in, and eyed everything in wonder. The cobbled streets, the profusion of bakeries, a creperie making fresh crepes with Nutella dripping out its corners, wrapped in a paper cone and handed out to hungry patrons,fresh vegetables spilling out of baskets on the storefront, flowers of all hues beckoning you, turn a little to the right and walk further and we were ogling at the Moulin Rouge- yes, that one.
And that was just the beginning of our week of wonder in the city of love...
To hear that Paris was under attack was heart breaking and when the number of dead victims kept increasing it was shocking and unimaginable. And when it was finally over, the realization struck that we live in a very unpredictable world.
I used to think that we were lucky enough, through the lottery that is life, to have been born in a politically stable democracy in a middle class family where you want for nothing and can aspire to achieve higher things than your parents did. I used to feel grateful to God who predestined us to that life and not a life of poverty and hunger and homelessness. And all this not because we were better than those hunger stricken humans, but like I said, the lottery of life.
But after Paris, it struck me that life, turns on a dime.
A neighbor of ours was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and went through chemotherapy, radiation and
surgery and I thought to myself, life is so unpredictable.
But that is something all of us deal with- sickness is expected in its own way. We have a physical being and that we have issues with it is normal. But when things like the Paris attacks happen, you really understand that life really can change in an instant.
How many concert goers held their family closer before they left because they knew they weren't coming back? How many people set their affairs in order because they knew they wouldn't be around to do it later? And when they lose their lives in a premeditated attck designed to intentionally murder people for no fault of theirs other than that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, it makes their deaths even more poignant.
Two things struck me when this attack happened. And it was driven home by the readings and homily in church. It was about the end of the world and all the signs and omens that accompany it. While humanity has been waiting and erroneously predicting the end of the world for centuries now,
that the world will at some point end for us , either individually or en masse is an established fact.
But how do we prepare for it? Do we keep it in mind when we say or do things? For Christians, who believe in judgement day, do our actions belie the fact that they all add up to where we spend eternity? I actually liked the Meghan Trainor/ John Legend duet that is blaring away on pretty much all music channels these days, ' I'm gonna love you, like I'm gonna lose you'. The impermanence of life needs to be on our minds constantly, not in a paranoid way. And most certainly not in a ' eat,sleep and be merry,for tomorrow I die ' kind of way, but more like being mindful in everything we do.
My husband always kisses me goodbye when he leaves for work and I've never taken it too sentimentally..but now I will.
I will hug and kiss my kids goodbye everyday because life is so transient and one day if the unthinkable happens( which it might, tomorrow or fifty years from now), we will have those treasured memories, those emotions that such love elicits and that will keep us going.
And the second thing- stop tarring people with the same feather based on some perceived notion like
religious beliefs. There was a tweet today that addressed the paranoia of some devout christains- yes,
I said christains, who felt that letting in 25000 Syrian refugees who were Moslems into the US is a foolish and dangerous thing to do.
"To people blaming refugees for attacks in Paris tonight. Do you not realise these are the
people the refugees are trying to run away from..?"
Makes sense?
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