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.

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.