I was wrapping up some late evening shopping on Friday when I felt my cellphone vibrate inside my purse.
It was my sister Jo texting. "You looking at the news? Some attack in Paris, France. Hope it won't affect your trip next month."
No, I wasn’t looking at the news.
“There was a bombing in a theater there,” she goes on. “They think it was a terrorist attack. They’ve declared a state of emergency.”
Ever since I knew there was a Paris, I wanted to go there. I’m not sure where I got such a highfalutin idea. Growing up, unless I was reading a book, my ventures outside McComb, Miss., had only gotten me as far as New Orleans and not that often.
I think now that maybe it was the French classes I took in high school and then junior college and the notion of romance, of an unforgettable rendezvous, discreet pleasures like kissing on the Eiffel Tower, snuggling on a cruise down the Seine.
My husband, Jimmy, knew this so as our 30th wedding anniversary approached, I started dropping hints again. He’d dug deep for our 20th anniversary and given me a nice diamond. A trip to Paris would be perfect. After all, since he works for Delta, the trip would be almost free.
We agreed we’d leave for the City of Light on Dec. 5, and I was soon on the phone happily sharing my plans with my sisters and our daughters, Asha and Jamila.
Now there was terror there. I would learn later, more than 100 people had been killed, including an American college student, and I felt such sadness. People were dead for no good reason. Just hatred. Hatred. Hatred.
I arrived home to find Jimmy on the phone with our travel agent. Not to worry, Gary told him. He and his wife had traveled after 9/11 to Rome. Nothing happened.
I’m not sure how I felt at the moment. I’d been thinking a lot about death and recalled a conversation I’d had earlier in the day with my sister Nancy. I keep thinking about Ruby Nell, I told her, and wondered out loud what it meant.
Nancy assured me that I just missed her and I do. Ruby Nell, the oldest of my nine siblings, died of a massive heart attack in 2006.
After dinner Friday, Jimmy and I spent the evening trolling the news channel for more information about the attack before going to bed.
I had three text messages when I got up the next morning and none had awakened me, proof I’d had a restful sleep. Jimmy had steeled my nerves the way he always does, this time reminding me that God is in control. If it were in his plans to end our lives in Paris, there was nothing we could do about it.
I mentioned text messages. Two were about the passing of my cousin Charles in Milwaukee and the other was from my baby girl, Asha.
“I don’t know how I feel about y’all going to Paris anymore,” she wrote.
“Yea, the world isn’t safe anymore but u can’t stop living,” I wrote back.
I intended to keep my plans.
Asha responded with a sad-faced emoji and I headed downstairs to spend time with God as I always do in the wee hours of the morning.
Back upstairs, I shut the door and kneeled in prayer. For the people of France, for peace, for guidance and always for my daughters. Careful never to take things for granted, I thanked God for shelter, jobs, the opportunity to visit Paris, for how he always keeps us safe.
Then on Sunday, I heard more bad news. There was reason to believe there would be more attacks on France in the coming weeks.
Our trip is less than three weeks away but listening I was reminded of this from the 14th Chapter of Job:
“Man that is born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble. He cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not. … Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass.”
I don’t know what the future holds, but I do know who holds the future.
