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Paris

Yesterday morning I saw Laura. As I approached her to hug her for the events of Friday night, I realized she was in pain. As I remembered her FB post on Sunday about the loss of one of her school friends, I hugged her for her pain and said I was sorry. What else could I say. 
Friday night had already been frightenly close but seeing Laura made it all too real. 
I was impressed about the post I read from one of the survivors. As she lied down on the floor between the other corpses, her last thoughts as she waited to be next to have her 22 year old life ended were of love, rather than anger or rage of what was happenig to her. She focused on sending warm thoughts to those she loved in the hope they knew how much she cared for them. She went further to re-assure the families of those dying next to her that their last whispers were of love and not anger. It gave me hope in the future, 
I was moved by this, though at the same time I wonder if this lack of reciprocity would just make us alike them. We tried this before and we continue loosing. In fact, lives continue to be taken in different parts of the world. And even though Paris made it real for many of us - with both its proximity but also the normal day life events that got disrupted - it is plain bad in many more places. 
There is hope that those remaining believe in life and still make this world a good place to be. There is fear we may never win this long battle if we continue to fight on our terms. I would not advocate for more violence, and I fear for all the refugees that will pay a high price for these atracks, but I do wonder how it all stopped. 
Part of fighting back is to not be afraid. But one needs to wonder next time you are on a theatre hall and the eyes get moved searching for the fire exit...
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