If I could have taken your pain away!

Fear is only as deep as the mind allows, says a Japanese proverb.

That day of November 2016, my mind let fear enter for a short while only. But I still have the taste of it in my mouth.

It is funny. If I read what I wrote last, it was about you, my love. Gaia. About your second birthday and all the joy you are bringing us every day. You, our fearless and wild one.

But a few days after your second birthday, your fearless and wild self grabbed a bowl of boiling tea on the table. You were so fast. Everything went so fast. And in less that a second, you were screaming...

My parents and I removed her clothes in a blink of an eye and rushed her to the kitchen sink. We let cold water run over her body. I was composed, calm and efficient. I believe I am not the type who is panicking when the girls get hurt or get daredevil.

But then, I saw it. Her skin, her soft, perfect, beautiful baby skin starting to melt in front of my eyes. This is when my mind plunged right into the deepest distress I have ever known. I screamed to my father to hold her and stumbled onto the sofa, in the living room. I remember Alia, standing there, watching us silently, without understanding. I remember my face in my hands. I remember screaming. Just a scream.

A few days later, my mother told me that this scream made her understand it was more serious than just a little burn.

After some pain killer and twenty minutes under running water, we jumped on our motorbike and rushed her to the clinic where she was taken care of by an amazing doctor. She did everything she had to do and more: calm Gaia, comfort me, panse her wounds and show love and compassion.

She reassured me Gaia will not have a single scare. She promised me Gaia will go home and play.

Two hours of being in a state of shock, sitting in the sofa back home, then Gaia fell asleep for a couple of hours. When she woke up, she took her pain killers and indeed, ran to play with Alia.

The next week was nothing but change her dressings, give her showers while she was crying out of fear for pain and taking care of her.

We also called a healer to take the fire away from her little body. Gaia was asleep when the woman arrived. She started working on her relaxed and sleeping body when Gaia woke up. She looked at her, closed her eyes again and let the biggest sight of relief out. She then let the healer move her around to work of every burned area of her body. Right after this day, I believe the wounds dried and healed faster.

Gaia sustained second degree burns on her shoulder, chest, side body, lower back. And a few first degree burns around her belly and mouth.

A few weeks later, her skin was healed but the pigmentation has not yet recovered. Thanks to a mix of essential oils a dear friend mixed for us, a few months later, we could not see where the burns used to be.

I realised I did not write anything since, because I was scared of facing that day, in front of the white page of my computer. But I coud not continue without writing about this scariest event of my life.

The day I wished I could take the pain away from my child.

“Home isn't a place, its a feeling”

“Maybe you had to leave in order to really miss a place; maybe you had to travel to figure out how beloved your starting point was.” 

― Jodi Picoult, Handle with Care


I am lucky.

I am lucky, because I have more than one place I can really call home.
I am lucky because I have people in many places I can call family.
I am lucky because I have friends, some since my tender childhood and some that came later in my life that never left my side, wherever we are in the World.
I am lucky I grew up in a beautiful countryside my children are able to experience every year.

Charles, my eldest friend and I, in my parent's garden.

When I moved to the Philippines, it was a natural move. I felt it was the next step I had to take. It was not hard, not heartbreaking, not challenging. Just natural.
I was not escaping a hard past, a relationship or a terrible country.
I was exploring and taking a step towards my independence and most importantly, I was making my own choice.
My parents raised us to be free to choose what we wanted to be (even though now, they may have doubts it was ever a good idea: it was, really).

Once I moved here, I never thought I could feel the need of coming back home.
I am happy here, I built my life here, grew my family here.
And even if I loved my country for the beauty of it, I left a country that was going through an economic crisis and where opportunities for people my age were not really great.

Playing at the park in France

I was never homesick. Just extremely happy to go home every year and enjoy great time with family and friends, amazing food and beautiful road trips. I was enjoying being a tourist in my birth country.

I felt like I had the best of both Worlds.
And I still do.

Once I gave birth to Alia though, things started to shift very slowly.
I rediscovered France with another eye.
I started feeling a pinch of homesickness every time I would think about something I used to do or eat at her age and how I wanted her to experience it.

Daddy Yo, Alia and Gaia in Anilao

The first two years of Alia's life, we kept going to France and visit only for a month. But when Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the first time, Alia and my pregnant self went to visit my parents. I was planning on staying a month but when complications with my pregnancy came, I had to extend another month. When it was time to go home, I realised it was the first time since I left my birth country that I stayed such a long period there. And on top of that, we did not travel around like the other years, we mainly stayed in the home I grew up in. It gave me a great amount of time to see friends and hang out with family.


When Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the second year, I thought: I really enjoyed being in France for two full months! Usually, we were only staying 4 weeks, travelled around for 2 full weeks and had very little time to see all the people we wanted to see. We would manage to squeeze in one dinner or lunch with every person we wanted to spend time with, which was not enough to really get to enjoy their presence and catch up with them.

So that second year, I decided to stay two months again. And the end of these two months came so quickly. Of course, it was awesome as we were going to visit Daddy Yo where he was working, so it was one more family adventure. But, all these trips and plane alone with two children wore me out. I went home exhausted and kept on being sick. Dengue virus was the last warning my body was giving me to make me understand I was tired and needed a little rest.

Playing in a wooden playground near a pond in France

This year, we took the decision to only go to France. No visit to Daddy Yo, which was a big and hard decision but a wiser one. And I asked my parents if they minded adopting me and the two girls for three long months. It felt amazing to be there. My mom was freshly retired so I had extra hands to help. My sister and I never had such a great bonding and she spent some great time with her two nieces. We got to spend so much time with my family and I got to spend much time with childhood friends, old and new friends. I even received, over a weekend, one of my very best friend who was visiting her in-laws from Australia. I have not seen her for 9 years and our children (who are the exact same age) met for the first time. They instantly became such amazing friends, it was heartwarming to see!


We had the opportunity to enroll Alia to kindergarden for the two last months of school year, so she could have activities and improve her french. Schools in France are free and mandatory so any child with a French citizenship is welcome anytime to join a new school. It has been a great experience for her! She is now speaking fluently in french to me, had a great time visiting the farm, playing with kids of the village where we live, getting to know the customs in France.

First day of school with warm clothes, new language, new classmates: Fun time!

School fair in Alia's school

I also spent some quality time with some very dear family members who are sick.
I may live on the beach and enjoy life where I am, but as an immigrant living far away from my own country, I am missing things out. This includes being present for your loved ones when they are going through hard time, sickness, problems, depression, or are just getting old. And it sometimes feels so heavy and challenging. I do sometimes feel like I am not fulfilling my role of friend, grand-daughter, cousin, niece...

 



We got to enjoy quality food, organic vegetables, good quality meat, amazing cheese. Food that I am not scared of putting in my daughter's body thinking of all the hidden antibiotics and GMO that might make them pubescent too early. Alia and Gaia took some poney lessons, rode the carousel endlessly, ran in the fields, went to the cinema to see beautiful indie children movies, visited a farm, baked with my sister, made a fire in the chimney when it was cold, jumped in the inflatable pool when it was hot, ran around and played with friends, mowed the lawn with their grand-dad, gardened and planted and watered flowers (and picked a lot on the way), played piano, learned how to behave in a restaurant, enjoyed food, food and more food, had a road trip in Switzerland to visit more family...

    

                                                        

I was also in France during a very painful time for all of us. Terror attacks.
The past ones that happened, I was in the Philippines. I felt lonely. It was just an awful event that had happened in the news for most people around me. And even if I could talk about it with Daddy Yo or a few other people, it kept on following me every second of the day for weeks.
It happened in my streets, to my friends, friends of my friends. I was far away. I could not hug them. I could not join the protests and the walks and reflect on what happened in the streets of the district I called home for 6 years in Paris.

A fire in the chimney to warm our hearts and soul

When the attacks happened on July 14th and a few days after again, it felt horrific and scary. But as weird as it sounds, I was surrounded by people who would talk about it and share my feelings. It did not drive me as crazy as the attacks of November and January 2015 because I could unload what I felt with people who felt the same way. I was there and I could share my pain. And my pain was lighter just by sharing it.

Yes, I have the best of both Worlds. And I want to keep it this way.
But it can also be challenging to jump from one World to another.
This is when you realise you can also be homesick for people.

The beautiful Eiffel Tower a few days after the attack in Nice, France.

Are we there yet?

"Each day of our lives, we make deposits in the memory banks of our children." Charles R. Swindoll

Playing in the park in Chartres

This past years have been challenging in many ways as Daddy Yo went to work abroad for the low season. It is the third summer I am spending alone with Alia and Gaia and of course, it is not a reason for us to stop the adventures! Last year, we went to visit my family in France then Daddy Yo in the USA. It was the first time for Gaia to go out of the Philippines, so it was quite an adventure for her! This year, we travelled to France and Switzerland. 

This is about me, the two girls, a big luggage, a couple of passport and too many airplanes.

Being a single parent is hard. I mean, you always have the perks of it: 

No one to fight over the movie to watch at night.

No one to fight over that last piece of chocolate or cheese after the children are gone to bed.

I am in charge of the menu, which means more healthy meals! (wink wink Daddy Yo!)

I am in charge of bedtime by myself, which means kids are going to sleep early and are not over excited and over stimulated right before sleeping (wink wink Daddy Yo!)

I am in charge of activities and daily schedule, which means I do not have a bad surprise when coming back from the shower seing kids painting on each other with textile paint.

Rolling down the hill

But it also can be overwhelming at time. And frustrating. Very frustrating.

I have very little break time. The kids are asking for my undivided attention at all time. Both of them. At the same time. Over different things.

One wants to breastfeed while the other one wants a cuddle. One wants to sit on my laps so the other one wants too. One is sick and needs me a lot more. The other one wants the same. One wants me to feed her, so I end up not eating with two children on my laps, feeding both of them.

Snack time!!!!!!!

And I am here in the middle. Pouring my love on them. Playing good cop, bad cop. Not having anyone who can step in and take over when I am ready to explode. And there are times when it gets to a point when I am craving to get my body back for an hour, a day. When no one will ask for me, touch me, grab me, climb on me, bite me, pull me, hang on my leg… It is a weird feeling when it seems your body doesn’t belong to you anymore. Not an single second of the day. 

Even at night :)

When Daddy Yo is here, we can share this. If one girl need me, he can take care of the other one. If I put one girl down for a nap, he will do something with the other one. They can share their needs between both of us. It seems a small, petty thing, but after 6 months of being more than their everything, it is hard for me. We may have a nanny but they don’t want them as they want their parents, of course. At least I am glad for that! They can still make the difference! 

I love them as much, maybe even more as the bonding is of every minute and we carry each other everyday. But It is also weary some days.

I first spent 3 months in France. And it never felt better being home than this year. 

The vibe, the choice of food from the market, the variety of activities for the kids. This year just felt good and I will get back to why it felt so good in the next post.

Poney ride in the countryside and around the lake.

While there, I had my parents and sister to share the attention of the kids with. And most important, my childhood friends, sister and parents to talk to at night. Once the girls were asleep, I would sneak out of the room and sit with my childhood friends and sister over a beer. Or sit on my parents bed and watch a movie or talk, talk and talk. After being a mother all day, it feels nice to feel like a child again, sometimes. Curled up on the foot of their bed. 

Sliding in Jardin du Luxembourg,
Paris

After we travelled back to Boracay, that was the hardest part to adjust to. Once the girls are asleep, it is me, myself and I. 

Long, silent evenings. 

No one to share the hard day I had with two sick children, or the homesickness of being back from my hometown, or the tantrums I had to deal with other than waiting for Daddy Yo to wake up over the computer and chat with him for a bit while he gets ready to work.

But it still is nothing, these challenges, compared to the gift and magic of having well travelled and adventurous children. 

To get to explore the World and our own limit with them, see their eyes get filled with excitement and slowly understand the World unfolding in front of them. 

To see them open their heart, their mind to so many different people and culture. And to never forget how it is to be a child. 

Because we all can. Just kneel down and look through their eyes. There is just love for us and amazing adventures awaiting.

A stroll in the French countryside under the rain.

If you travel with young children by yourself, talk to them, always. 

I kept on telling them: We are a team. It is us against the rest of the World. It is gonna be hard for me, this trip as the only adult. So you guys gonna have to help me. Check on each other, check on me as much as I will check on you. Never leave my side. Never leave your sister's side. Be patient as much as I will be. This is one long day and then, it will be over. Let's hold each other's hand and work through it as a team. 

And guess what? It works! Yes, kids are smart and sensitive enough to understand all of the challenges. They can adapt. They can be the best team mates you would ever imagine. Just give them the chance to be. You might be surprised! 

Now, Alia's favorite mantra is "Family hug! We are family! Gaia, it is you and me forever!". 

When they are not hitting each other, arguing over a toy or my attention, this is them, learning that sisterhood is above everything else.

Sister love in Baler, Philippines. Credit: Sabs Bengzon

Hiraeth

I come from everywhere and nowhere.

I call home a few places: Chartres, Paris, Boracay. And Algeria. But not the country of today; the one who used to be, long time ago, who is not anymore. The one I never knew and will never know.

According to Geiriadur, Welsh-English / English-Welsh dictionnary, "Hiraeth is a Welsh word for which there is no direct English translation. The University of Wales, Lampeter attempts to define it as homesickness tinged with grief or sadness over the lost or departed. It is a mix of longing, yearning, nostalgia, wistfulness, or an earnest desire for the Wales of the past."

This is a concept hard to grasp yet a fascinating word all together.

How can one long for a home that was never home? A time one never knew?

It is hard to explain yet very real. I know this feeling well, actually. How peculiar it sounds, thinking about it.

My family is pretty big. And by this, I mean my direct and extended family. Yes, in my family, extended family IS family. Grand children of cousins are cousins. Great great uncles are uncles. Third degrees cousins are the same as first degree cousins. And some of my family members were patient and brave enough to research on the roots of our family and managed to go back as early as the 15th century.

And there we were, jews from Andalousia who went through the expulsion of all Jews of Spain by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella in 1492.

My family escaped to North Africa and settled in what is known now as the country of Algeria. 

They spent five century there. During the 20th century, France colonised Algeria and my great uncles fought for this foreign country during the First World War. My grand father was born way after them as my Great grand father had about 13 children (the last one was born when he was more than 70 years old).

The book "80 letters from Abraham Ben Meir to his
five sons mobilized during the war, 1914-1918."
by Andre Chouraqui. 

My grand father left his country to study and become a doctor in France. The second World War came and my grand-father worked in the French villages to help people. He met my grand-mother, a catholic young woman, daughter of a steel worker. She never really went out of her village, was years younger than him but was bolt enough to marry a Jew at the nose of the Nazi. 

Fortunately, a relative of my grand-father told him he was in a list of Jews supposed to be arrested. He had to plan a quick escape back to his home country. My grand-mother, young and very adventurous, followed him in the Free Zone in South of France, crossed the Mediterranean Sea and ended up in Oran, Algeria. 

Oran before 1962

Three children were born there. My mother was the youngest. They had a beautiful childhood. The sea was breathtakingly beautiful, they were living all together with their cousins, grand-mother, uncles and aunts. The sundays on the beach, grilling fish with the family. The seeds of fruits they were using to play marbles.

But when my mom was 4 years-old, the Algerian War started against the French. Nasty, scary. Every day, the impacts of bullets in the walls, the death threats in the street, the killings in front of anyone, anxiously waiting for my grand-father when the curfew started but he was still taking care of patients, the bombs. This one bomb that exploded right next to my mom while she was biking, throwing her on the ground while my grand-father ran to check if she was still alive.

Oran, 1962

When my mom was 12, they had to leave the country. The War was still going on and it was not safe enough to stay any longer as the Jews were attacked as well. As France colonised Algeria as early as 1830, my mom was born officially French. The easiest solution for them was to move to France. My mom was the first one to leave, joining my uncle who was married to a Swiss woman. She left everything behind, in the middle of the night. She could not bring her teddy bear, nor say goodbye to her friends. She left behind her mother, father, sister and brother who were older and had things to fix before leaving. 

She spent a trimester in Geneva at her cousins' before meeting her parents in Paris, their new home. Since then, our family is in France. I am part of the first generation of our family, born in France. And my children are already born some place else.

But to go back to this word, "hiraeth". I always felt my roots were in Algeria. I always felt part of me was so strongly North African. During family meetings, we will always talk about Oran, Ain Temouchent, Tlemcen, the towns and villages in Algeria where we are from. We would always cook the food from there. 

A beach in Ain Temouchent

Since many years, it's an untold custom in the family to try and find the perfect recipe of this orange pie my mom, uncle and aunt were eating when they were small, the one Madame Pedro was baking. None of us ever tried the original, but we talk about it almost like our own childhood memory. We heard them talk about their childhood so much, the fond memories, that this is also part of us. We miss it as much as they do. 

And it is sad because it is not a safe place anymore for us to go and visit. But it is home. My great grand-father, Abraham Baba Ben Meyer, old man with a white Sarwel and a headwrap like the Ottoman time, is buried there. As my great-grand-mother, Ramona.

This man on the photo, Baba, even my mom never met him. He was born in 1848 and died in 1929. He was speaking Judeo-arabic, a dead language today. But we talk about him as if we all knew him. And I carry this place and this people in me. 

Baba is inside each of us, standing proudly. He had a dozen of children, 54 grand-children, more than a hundred great-grand children. We stopped counting. 

My children are far from Andalousia, Algeria and France. They are born in yet another continent. But I do hope they will carry Baba inside them as much as we all do in this side of the family. Because it is home to me.

 

You are stronger than you know

When my parents moved to the small village where they still live, 35 years ago, they eventually met our neighbors. Little did we know the impacts we will have on each other's life at this time. They were a sweet couple with grown-up children.

By the time I was born, they became close to each others. Colette always tells me the story when she took me from my mother's arm a day I was crying and I stopped, staring at her. She says this was the day she knew something special will happen between us.

And it did happen. We were always playing at their place, in the tower in their garden. We would spend a lot of time with them. She was a painter and spent hours with me, drawing. She was also writing amazing poetry and she was the only one I would totally trust to show what I was writing myself. To this day, she still kept every single poem and drawing I made.

At 7, I lost my dear grand-ma. I was so close to her. Colette hugged me and told me: "I will never replace your grand-mother, but if one day, you want to consider me as your grand-mother too, you should know you are already a grand-daughter to us."

I've lost my grand-mother. Someone no one would ever replace. But this day, I have gained a grand-mother. Someone no one would ever replace.

All my childhood and teenage years, Colette was my confident. I would cry to her over my fears, my sister, my parents, boys. She was reading me. She would tell me her life. Something none of my grand-parents by blood ever did.

My grand-dad on my mother's side had Alzheimer when I was born. His wife spent years being devoted to taking care of him by herself. On my father's side, my grand-dad was not such a talker with us. It came just a few years before he passed away. And his wife was the grand-ma I lost when I was 7.

I grew up looking at Colette as a strong woman, someone who knew about love, poetry, art. She met Bernard when she was only 15 and married him when she was only 17.

Bernard was strong. A little darker. But very nice and sweet. When I was about 10, I started understanding he was in the Concentration Camps when he was a teenager. He lost all his family there. He was adopted at 20 by a wealthy family who took great care of him. But, his nightmares were still there. He was close about it even though he would evoke an episode of his imprisonment once in a while, after a dinner.

When I was 13, I started being really interested by Bernard story. That was part of the story of my people after all! My grand-dad on my mother side ran away from France (where he was studying and working as a doctor) after marrying my grand-mother because he was a jew and did not want to be caught. He went back to Algeria, where he was from.

So one day, Bernard sat with me and told me his complete story. The whole thing. Not sparing me with any details. That was shocking, that was true, that was open-minding. He saw I was passionate about it and started feeding me with articles and books about the camps. I recorded him, brought him to school, worked on his story. My dad started being obsessed about it as well. It's something Bernard never talked about much, even with his own children and grand-children. The fact he was opening up to me about it made me feel I had a duty of remembrance towards him.

When I moved to the Philippines, I only was able to see them once a year when I was going back to France for holidays. I could not enjoy them the same way as we would visit them with the whole family: my parents, Daddy-Yo then with Alia. I had less time to go and see them by myself and stay for hours like I used to do before. When you are far, you realize how people grow older. This year was the year it struck me.

Bernard always been the "old school husband". Working hard, earning the money, holding the accounts, driving the car, thinking for the couple. Colette always been the romantic one, dreaming her life, living in the nostalgia of the sweet past, taking care of her children, cooking and supervising the cleaning at home. They are together for more than 50 years and it always worked.

She is relying on him for providing. He's relying on her for everything concerning the house.
But this year, she got sick. Her back was so painful and she was stuck in bed. It came to a point where she called my sister and I at home to get an ambulance. Bernard was downstairs and could not hear her calling him. I left Alia with my sister while she was cooking lunch for them and ran there. I told Bernard to call an ambulance and went to her side. She was holding my hand, crying. She thought she was having a heart attack. She could not feel her feet and hands anymore, she was shaking. She talked to me and told me how she loved Bernard. How she was worried for him to be my himself if she was to die. Or even stay one night at the hospital. i told her we will take care of him and bring him food.

She left in the ambulance and had to stay in the hospital for a week. Every night, Bernard will come at home to have dinner. He would eat a lot, drink a glass of wine. Everything Colette refrained him to do at home because of his health!! He was tired from all his round trips to the hospital but he was enjoying being with us. He started telling us how he never touched or held his own kids. And he was looking at Alia being carried and fed by my dad, playing with him and hugging him. He remembered Daddy-Yo changing Alia's diaper or putting her to sleep. So may things he never did. I think his past is taking a big part of responsibility for that. His teenage years were so heavy and his adulthood was built on this memories. He was never without it, even at night. He was living it every single minute. He had no space for being a father.

During that week, he started taking Alia on his laps, removing her shoes when she wanted to, hug her, play a little with her. At 89 years old, it was his first time to really hold a child. That same week, he also blew my mind. One evening, we told him we were worried that he might not eat lunch as he didn't pass by home to get lunch or called us to cook for him. He laughed and said he ate. He cooked. Beef steak. By himself. For the first time of his life! He said the day before he cooked pasta. He explained how surprised he was to put such a small amount of pasta and ended up with so much. He didn't even know pasta expand when cooking! We all laughed as he was telling us the worst wasn't cooking but actually, it was doing the dishing. My aunt joked, telling him the worst was when the pan was burnt and one had to scrub it. He looked embarrassed and said his pan was actually burnt when he cooked his steak! And that's why he really hated doing the dishes.

This man who went through hell and came back, is able to learn new things every day, even at 89 years old! I was looking at him, small and shaking. But he just installed internet at home and surf the web all day, reading online articles about food and health with his smart phone. He cooked for the first time and washed the dishes. He took care of a child.

Some days, he would ask me if I knew about Goji berries or if I knew how to use ginger because it is known to be good for health. And I cannot stop looking at this man and thinking: The learning process in life should never stop, it help you grow always and it help you stay young mentally. It helps you see the bright side. It helps you experience new things. It helps you to live.

When I was a child, I used to look at my grand-ma Colette as a strong woman. But, now I grew up. I am a mother, I am a wife. And I realized that, yes, you need to live with poetry in your life, you need to cherish memories. But living through the past won't help you in the future. She is getting older and older. And he is getting wittier. And I am sad to witness her keeping on turning towards the past instead of accepting technology and daily things like Internet, phones, simple banking.

I am realizing the way I was brought by my parents is a huge advantage: learning that even if you love and trust your husband, you need to have your own money, your own bank account, your own life.

Being independent is the biggest lesson a parent can teach his kids.

Teach your kids that learning things never stops, that discovering new ways and changing your mind is the most valuable thing in life. Let them be and experience. Set the example by doing things you love, learning new things just for the sack of learning new things.

Alia only have them left as great-grand-parents. And my grand-dad Bernard will definitely be one of her example of perseverance and strength. He is a survivor in every single meaning of the word.