Paris: Remembering The Brokenness and Teaching Our Children.

Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them. Deuteronomy 4:9

My youngest child had a history assignment to report his memories of a significant family event. He chose our family's home exchange in a Paris suburb and wrote down his memories from the trip.  The next night he was asked to interview me for my memories of the same Paris trip. He was learning that history differs by who is remembering and who is reporting. 

Our trip to Paris fell in the weeks just between my husband's awful (third-time) disclosures and the day I concluded that separation seemed the only option to protect myself. In responding to my son's interview, I was remembering both extraordinarily painful things and warm family times during those Paris weeks. I discovered that the color and clarity of my story depends upon how far up the mountain I am standing when I look backwards over the valley. How I report my story also depends on what is appropriate for the listener. And our story always depends on whether we have experienced the Great Lion walking next to us on the climb; either it is His Story, or I am still pretending it is merely my story.

• From this vantage point, what I remember about Paris are late night e-mails with relatives, planning how to begin the separation process, how they would take care of me, how to protect my husband from himself, how conversations might go. It was a time of preparing to walk through the coming days with grace, strength, and the support of family. 

• I remember talking with my eldest son in the lunch room at the Louvre' and letting him know for the first time that his parents weren’t doing so well.  

• I remember Rembrandt's "Bathsheba" painting at the Louvre' and how Rembrandt captured the fear and submission to exploitation in the expression of the commoner Bathsheba who has been summoned by the powerful king David.[1]

• I remember entering Catholic mass at a French cathedral and singing the American protestant hymn, Amazing Grace (in French)! 

• I remember the conversation with my husband in our tiny Euro-kitchen where I asked him: “What do you plan to do to help restore this relationship?” I remember with sorrow his answers: "I can’t believe you think I haven’t done enough;" "I can’t answer that because it’s a trap;" "I’ve been married to you 28 years and I can’t think of one nice thing to say about  you;" "It’s really mostly your fault that I went to prostitutes and now that I've confessed it all to you, I don’t know why you are having such a hard time;" "it’s so unfair that you would ask me that question." I ponder his answers when I doubt the assurance from the Holy Spirit on the path taken. 

• I remember the plaza around Notre' Dame Cathedral glowing with evening lights, displaying the persistence of the Church universal through the French Revolution when the Enlightened populace tried its best to discard the Church.

• I remember the exquisite red Unicorn Tapestries at the Cluny Museum and the 15th Century French poem counseling the princess depicted about becoming a lady of virtuous character; 

• And I remember trudging up worn pilgrim steps and cobblestone streets on Le Mont Saint-Michel to the medieval monastery, carrying a backpack of sadness and hearing the chorus of nuns singing over me.  It was a total body and soul wash of blessing. Their voices gave assurance that God would continue singing over me in the days ahead.[2]

But to my son, I recalled other memories: 

• Together we climbed 669 steps of the Eiffel Tower to survey all of Paris;

• Our home outside of Paris came with a cat named Lola; the song Copa Cabanna ("her name was "Lola") kept running through my head. 

• The Museum Carnavalet told the history of the second world war and celebrated the few thousand brave Frenchmen who rescued Paris while omitting the hundreds of thousands of American troops who actually liberated Paris.

• Our discovery of Croque Monsieur and Croque Madame and delightful warm, drippy, chocolaty crepes filled with bananas.

Did I avoid teaching my memories to my child as Deuteronomy requires?  But Child,' said the Lion, 'I am telling you your story, not hers. No one is told any story but their own.”[3]  He only tells you your story.  The rest is His Story. 

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1.Rembrandt, Bathsheba at Her Bath (1654)

2. Zephaniah 3:17. The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” 

3. C. S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy

4. One of the Cluny Tapestries, The Lady and the Unicorn