As Americans, we are safe.
I spent July studying abroad in Paris, learning the ins-and-outs of the French language and culture. I fell in love with the romance, deeply enjoyed the food, and spent the majority of my time exploring the art and history of the country.
On the weekends, I traveled throughout Europe with one of my friends from the trip. We decided last-minute to go to Nice in the French Riviera. I have never been so enraptured by a community as I was by the quaint, tropical town on the Mediterranean.
I remember calling my mom from the hotel and telling her that while in Nice I felt safer than I had in all of Europe. It seemed isolated from the violence and suffering of the rest of the continent, and the people warmly welcomed us as they shared their way of life with two American girls.
Three days after I returned from Nice was Bastille Day, or the French National Day, and I sleepily decided not to attend the fireworks at the Eiffel Tower. As I was reading in my room, my phone began to erupt with text messages and calls from concerned friends and family.
“Are you ok?”
“Please tell me you are alive.”
“Sarah, answer the phone please. I need to know you are safe.”
With trembling hands and pulsing waves of shock, my heart dropped straight through my chest and hit the floor. I was in Paris, the capital of France where the terrorist attacks had occurred just the previous November. Anything could have happened.
Nice was the last place that I expected an act of terrorism.
I still do not know if the man who sold me an oil painting on the promenade is alive. The children running with their kites through the street may no longer have parents. My hotel was used as a temporary hospital for people seriously injured on a night full of joy and celebration.
I grew up a military brat, the daughter of an Air Force pilot; I have directly witnessed the sacrifices that men and women make every day so that we live with safety and freedom. I somehow still took every bit of it for granted before I traveled abroad.
In Europe, I was privileged enough to see a minimal glimpse of the tragedy and suffering that some people around the world experience every single day. Even as I write this now, I am physically sickened by the horrors that exist while I complain about the candidates that we freely chose, or the education that is paid for, or the country that protects my basic human rights at all times.
While in France, I was constantly humbled by the gaps of knowledge I lacked due to the ease at which my life exists in America. The people hardly flinched at the Nice attack. Compared to the constant persecution and pure suffering that exists daily in the Middle East and parts of Europe, the attack paled in extremity.
I was face-to-face with victims and refugees constantly, and I was ashamed.
I was ashamed that I did nothing. I was ashamed that I dropped a few coins in a cup while I have riches beyond their wildest imaginations at home.
I was ashamed that I was an American; that I lived safely across the ocean in what could only be called a “promise land.”
During my month in Paris, there were at least four acts of terror within Europe that made headline news. In my twenty years of life in the United States, I only barely recall one such tragedy.
It is so easy to get swept into the wave of anxiety due to political scandals, social unrest, or whatever other news is happening in our country today. Yes, those things are important, and yes, they can be scary.
However, since I am an American, I now know that I am among the luckiest people on the planet. I am so blessed.
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