On Notre Dame, Loss and Love

Notre Dame de Paris

Up Close

Closer

So much has been said, written and felt about the devastating fire that ripped through Notre de Dame de Paris three weeks ago that I’m not sure there’s room to add more. Yet like the loss of a loved one, it is healing to process the pain throughout the weeks, months and years beyond the initial shock. As with death, this tragic event will always leave a hole in our hearts, since many of us did suffer a huge sense of loss, particularly on the emotional front.

For me, it brought up so much on so many levels. Le choque, or the shock, of this magnificent Gothic cathedral catching on fire was what first hit me. Utter disbelief that quickly gave way to a flood of tears. The unthinkable had happened. I remembered staring at her magnificent flying buttresses at length on a homework assignment for my Architecture de Paris course when I did my junior year abroad in Paris. Those old stones had already lived well for centuries; there was no reason to think that they would not endure centuries more. And then when I settled into living in Paris for another ten years, Notre Dame was a constant–as much as the Eiffel Tower, the Arc de Triomphe, the Champs-Elysées, the rabbit warren streets of the Latin Quarter, the cafés of the Left Bank and so many other parts of the French capital that are quintessentially Parisian. 

Her Flying Buttresses

I remembered zooming by her countless times along the quais de la Seine, main thoroughfares that cut through the City of Light, and glancing through the window of the car (or bus) to see “our lady,” forever solid, spectacularly ebullient by night and always a symbol of the heart of Paris, perhaps the heart of France. When I was student in Paris, I learned that distances to or from Paris are always calculated from Notre Dame; I would often think about that great beacon whenever I saw road signs in France, a country that much to many travelers’ delight, boasts some of the best signage in the world. 

Her Famous Gargoyles

I first visited Notre Dame when I was sixteen when I did an exchange with Chantal, a French-speaking Belgian girl that has been my friend for life. Then in addition to studying Notre Dame, I always brought friends and family there whenever they came to visit me in Paris. For me, Notre Dame was always much more of a must than the Eiffel Tower, which I also love. 

Eery on an October’s Night

Aside from the awe-inspiring magnificence and jewel-like splendor of the interior of “our lady,” I often went to light a candle (or two or three) and to say special prayers. Although I was raised a Catholic and I consider myself to be a spiritual person, I am not a religious person per se. I do love many of the rituals of the Catholic church though. Notre de Dame de Paris, however, represents so much more than the Catholic faith; with all the prayers that have been said within her walls, I believe she holds mystical powers the likes of what you find at other great places of worship, or at Stonehenge or along the pilgrimage route to Santiago. As a young woman, I prayed for peace within the world and for direction in my own life. As I grew older the pleas grew more personal and more intense. I suffered many miscarriages when I lived in France and I can remember one particularly grey day (there are so many in Paris), shuffling into Notre Dame’s great interior with my mother to ask for help with that pain. (My prayers were answered in a way I least expected in the months and years that passed.) 

There are many magnificent churches and cathedrals in France–the Romanesque church of Saint-Germain-des-Près has been one of my favorites as well–but Notre Dame always left me awestruck, so it made sense that that is where I’d find the spirit of God to be greatest. (That was, in fact, much of what Gothic cathedrals were all about: make the ceiling as high as it could be and the lighting dim and magical-looking with the use of stained glass windows in order to enhance the feeling of the power and presence of God.) 

I’m going to be back in Paris the first week of June and one of the visits at the top of my list was to go to Notre Dame and light a candle for my brother, David, who is now a year and a half into battling Stage 4 throat cancer. Selfishly I felt crushed to think that I wouldn’t be able to go due to the destruction from the fire. But I will go. I will stand outside and say a prayer for him and for all the other challenges I have in my life. I will pray for the world and most especially for the people of France and les parisiens who have undoubtedly been struck to the core by this tremendous loss.

I did some bereavement work with hospice many years ago and the first thing I learned was that each loss brings up a past loss. Loss is loss. That terrible sinking feeling that something or someone is gone and will never come back–at least not in the same way–does hurt a lot. 

Yes, the unthinkable happened with the fire of Notre Dame. (At least I had never thought of it.) It reminded so many of us of 9/11, which was in many ways quite different but similar in the fact that the two events were unimaginable–at least for most of us. We have entered an era of unimaginable happenings:  the November 13 attacks in Paris that killed 129 people, last year’s ghastly shooting in Las Vegas, the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, the Easter Sunday mass terror attacks in Sri Lanka, the list goes on. Sadly much of what was once unimaginable, such as school shootings, is now quite imaginable. 

We know that our loved ones–pets, family and friends–will one day die and often we spend too much time before they go bracing ourselves for that inevitability. I have a good amount of old and ailing pets and loved ones in my life and can’t help but think about the effect their struggles and eventual passing will have on me these upcoming months and years. I sometimes wonder how I will be able to handle such sadness.

Last year this time I had a crazy close brush with death when a towering more-than a hundred-year-old tree was caught in a random wind gust and fell down in an enormous swoosh just fifteen feet in front of me. It happened as I was about to step out of my car to go into tape my radio show. I’d say I was within a few seconds of being smooshed. I texted and called my closest loved ones after that happened, cried, drank a couple of margaritas and drifted about in a fog of disbelief and gratitude for a couple of days afterward. That could have been the unthinkable. And oh, how the people upon whose property stood the tree grieved that happening. Their loss was real. It had appeared to be a healthy tree and they did not expect its life to end that way.

Our resilience is tested time and time again throughout life and as much as there is much division among us, the notion of we are one rises again and again. On 9/11, so many of my French friends reached out to me just as I later mourned with them the horror of their November 13 attacks. (This tragic event felt particularly close to home not only because it happened in my old neighborhood in Paris but most especially because my ex-husband lost his wife when she was gunned down having dinner in a little bistrot. Read Paris Attacks Hit Home.)

Yet we are stronger than we realize. I always thought my world would end when my father passed but I have been amazed at my strength. Most of us are made of good stuff. Those that aren’t are for the most part creating their own misery. 

I guess tragedies such as Notre Dame serve to remind us to appreciate what we have now as much as possible. Love your loved ones more, feel and express gratitude toward them and to all of those material things that give you joy. I’m not talking about your iPhone. (Although the loss of an iPhone can be pretty devastating.) I know that after that tree incident–and perhaps it’s also my new-found love for gardening–I look at nature differently. I try not to take the beauty that surrounds me for granted. Maybe this is why I love being out on the mountain so much; skiing on the hill feels like a prayer.

After Notre Dame, I vow to treasure all beauty–in nature and manmade–more. Someday the unthinkable will happen to our planet or certain slices of it. It already has! I’d hate to think Shoot, I should have appreciated that more before it was swept away.

I am trying to cherish my loved ones more, too. That’s actually why I think I handled my father’s passing better than I would have imagined:  I was able to spend a lot of quality time with him in the decade and a half before he passed, I had plenty of opportunities to express my love and respect for him and as much as I felt that I wanted more years with him, I knew I had had no regrets about anything with him or our life together.

I look forward to seeing Notre Dame and my French friends again in June. I will personally convey my condolences to them and likely even say a few kinds words to the French folks I encounter at the bakery and here, there and the other place. I imagine that some of the latter might be taken aback by my affection because it is not typically French to be warm and fuzzy among strangers. But still, I will show them my solidarity and in expressing that I know I will be showing my love of France. To me, that’s always a good thing.

So Beautiful

Vive la France, vive Notre de Dame de Paris and her wonderful spirit of love and light! And as President Macron says, “Nous allons la reconstruire” (We are going to rebuild her.) Yes, resilience and reconstruction are at the core of the human spirit, dieu merci. 

Steve and Me Awestruck at Notre Dame

Know that the photos in this post were taken during my last visit to Notre Dame in the fall of 2014 with my boyfriend, Steve. We did what so many people have done for ages, we walked around the exterior, around the Ile de la Cité and also gazed at her from Ile Saint-Louis where we admired her extraordinary beauty from afar. That’s best done at night when she is illuminated. (I’m hoping to do the same in June as well as to stop by during the day.) We were not able to go inside because it was very late and I believe that there was already some work going on. But even if we had, I wouldn’t have taken any pictures. I never took pictures of the interior of Notre Dame; to me, it felt irreverent. After the fire though I am even more grateful for those amateurs and professionals that did. 

Please enjoy the below poem that I discovered last week at a poetry gathering. It is by Kathleen Cain, a poet and naturalist from Denver that traveled some seven hours to share her writings in my little mountain town. I was not only touched by the words in the poem but also by the fact that it shows once again that people all over the world were effected by the events of Notre Dame de Paris. I hope her words will resonate with you as much as they did for me.

Notre Dame de Paris

by Kathleen Cain

April 16, 2019 

spark in the attic

a roof of antique oak;

the reporter describes

the smell of the smoke:

fragrant wood

gargoyles intact

their reputation

for protection 

sundered; a medieval charm

broken

everyone pulls out

quotes from Quasimodo

forgetting his name

the hands of peasants

lifting stones for centuries

to the Mother of God

French fire service

Reprimands the U.S. president

in his own English

colors of the smoke

orange  red  yellow  blue  black

each a different burning

overhead drone shot

cross-section of nave and transept

the exploded heart

thought of melted bells –

safe, the bell towers are safe

but, the rose windows?

out of darkness

hymns of the anonymous

smoke of human song

first interior shot

not as bad as first thought

glint of the gold cross

rich man’s donation

a hundred million Euros

“raise high the roofbeams”

such conflagration

racing through the human heart

loss of centuries

as for rebuilding

it’s been done before

see: Windsor Castle

Note: “raise high the roofbeams” is the title of a novella by J.D. Salinger, “Raise High the Roofbeams, Carpenters”.