Friday November the 13th
2015: It started as a very nice day in Amsterdam for me. A great Friday filled
with shopping and high tea with my sister-in-law. A day filled with fun,
laughter and talks about having children, as my sister-in-law is expecting.
An evening filled with
laughter and songs as I was driving to France with my husband. It had been
planned for months: we were going to spend the weekend at my parents’ place
because it was too long to wait till Christmas and they were having a nice
theme dinner in their village. The atmosphere was definitely light and joyful.
Arriving close to Paris, we
saw signs that we should avoid the Stade de France area. Just a normal sign on
a game night. We did wonder which way we should take: to the right or to the
left of the stadium? But no traffic, just the way to the stadium that had been
blocked by the police and the bright lights of the stadium. We even said to
each other “What a big party tonight! We should check which game or which
concert it is as soon as we get home!”.
At that moment, I don’t
really know why, but I picked my phone out of my bag and saw that my parents
had called and left a message on my answering machine. So I turned my roaming
on and saw that my mom had also left me a Facebook message to let me know about
the game and that we would probably have traffic. No need to call them back
then…
But at that moment I started
receiving other messages, on Whatsapp this time… From a group of French girlfriends
living in the Netherlands like me. About how horrific it was in Paris… “What?!
How?! What are they talking about?! We are
driving in Paris right now?!...” And then they answered it was about a hostage
situation and an attack!
Now I really needed to call
my parents back… They were so relieved to hear from us! But when they told me
about the bombs at the stadium, the gunmen, the hostage situation in a concert
hall… all I could do was cry. I cried and felt relieved we were leaving Paris and
its area.
When we arrived at my
parents’ place, the joy and lightness of the whole weekend was gone. We watched
TV for a while, we checked Facebook and I heard some of my friends were just a
few streets away from the gunmen’s attacks. They were in Paris for two
concerts. As were my parents a weekend earlier. And my husband went to Paris for
a football game three weeks earlier.
All of a sudden it’s all so
close, so personal!
I finally went to bed, but
could hardly sleep. Every time I woke up I hoped it was all a nightmare… but it
wasn’t! In the morning, I first checked Facebook to check on people I know and
I felt big tears rolling on my cheeks.
Saturday was a very
emotional day. And in the middle of all this crying and following the news, I
was asked to do the most special translation ever: I was asked to translate the
condolence letter from the Mayor of Amsterdam to the Mayor of Paris.
That was it: that was my way
of doing something meaningful in this horrible situation. A mix of sadness,
honor and pride, all at once.
I think I’ve never felt more
French. I’ve never been chauvinistic, but for the first time ever, I felt proud
of my flag, proud of my land, proud of my people.
All these French flags
invading Facebook, even from my Dutch friends. That felt good and soothing.
On Sunday, I went back home,
back to Holland. Even if I didn’t do more than a translation, it felt right to
be at ‘home’, to be in France that weekend. That’s where I wanted to be and
where I needed to be at that time.
One thing is sure, now even
more than before that terrible Friday night: I have two homes, two countries
which I love very much, and when they bleed and suffer, I do too.
