We are all Parisian

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As I come to terms with the terrorist attacks in Paris, I really don’t know how to adequately express myself. My heart is feeling so many emotions – pain, grief, compassion, sadness, love, hurt, anger. I keep trying to rationalize everything but you just can’t rationalize something that is so irrational.

I pray for the children that lost their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. The parents that lost their sons and daughters. The wife that lost her husband, the husband that lost his wife. Because while the news talks about all the people who lost their lives as a single entity, we fail to realize that each one of them had a name, a family, a story.

This terrorist attack brings up memories I try to suppress. My own experiences on September 11th while living in Washington, D.C. I can only imagine the fear, confusion, and grief of the thousands of children that lost their sense of innocence on Friday. The New Yorker ran this cartoon yesterday and it resonates so much with me because Madeline, the curious and courageous and precocious girl, is me 14 years ago. So many French children went to sleep Thursday night thinking they were safe and carefree. And they went to sleep Friday night with a loss of innocence and a pessimistic view of this world.

The day after September 11th, a French magazine ran the headline “We are all American.” and today, we are all Parisian.

We are all Parisian.