On January 20th, a Wednesday, I got the call. It was 3 p.m. California time,  12 p.m. Paris. My youngest son picked up. He was happy as usual, to hear his brother's voice, he started telling him about  his day... but he was insistent, asking for me.... 

"Hello..? How's it going! " I chimed....

"Mama...? Don't worry...." 

"Why...? What happened.....?

"I just don't want you to worry, O.K.?"

"What happened ....!" I could hear the hysteria mounting in my own voice....

"I was attacked....." he sobbed..."I was attacked, I was beaten... but I am fine..."

 -- I could hear the slur in his voice, he was definitely not fine. 

"You need to tell me. What happened....how badly hurt are you....?"

"They broke my teeth." 

--  I think I screamed at this point. My two youngest didn't know what was going on, but they were huddling around me, crying. I was also crying.... his teeth! He has always had the whitest teeth, it was of the most prominent smiles in his prom pictures... I brushed those teeth when he was a little boy....! And he definitely  hadn't said tooth it was more than one...

"How many...? How many teeth?"

"Three", he said, " I think three".

"What else?"

"My eye. I can't see. It's closed"

-- I realized then that this was serious....

"Where are you?"

"I am at Madame's (Renaud) house, she's here with me. She picked me up from the hospital..." -- The hospital....! Oh my god, he has been in the hospital...! The more I tried to wrap my mind around it the more impossible it seemed. What could I do? 7,000 miles away. How can I help my son? Who is going to take care of him... watch over him.... the hospital....!     and then she spoke:

"He is OK, our son, he is fine, I will take care of him. He is like my son. I love him like my son. He is such a good boy, this is a terrible thing to have happen but don't you worry, I will take care of our son, the police have been called. My son in law went after them...."

 She spoke in a combination of French and Spanish. She sounded very sweet, very reassuring. then she switched the phone back over to him. I didn't now what to say to him. I didn't know what I could do. he was so. far. way.  He sounded so sad. His dream shattered. His sense of security gone. He said he wanted to come home. I told him to go to sleep. Try to rest. I needed to figure out our next step...

I hung up. I cried. I told the children what had happened. I remember hearing Remy, wailing...no...! My brother...! His teeth.....! They both cried, we all cried....then I called our friend. Monsieur K. 

"I need a ticket to Paris." I said...

"When do you want to leave....?" 

Just like that. No questions asked. He knew I wouldn't ask if it weren't indispensable. I told him what had happened. He offered unwavering support. Without me even having a passport, it was decided I would go. At first I was going to bring the children with me. But it was decided that I needed to be 100 percent available to my oldest son. He needed me like he had never needed me before.

I am amazed at all I accomplished in the next 2 days. I called the University here in the States and was given the telephone number of the head of the study abroad program, I called him at home. He was very concerned and promised to call the offices in Paris and make sure he was well taken care of. By the following morning, he had done just that. The people at the Micefa were on their way to Madame Renaud's to check on him and on his status. He also told me that after speaking to the Micefa people he had learned that my son was one of the best students they had ever had. He said that everyone in the office spoke very highly of him and that even one of the professors at the Sorbonne had contacted the Micefa to let them now how impressed he was with my son. The University liaison said that he was deeply saddened  that this had happened to mar his french experience but that he hoped he would overcome it. As for the hospital and any other expenses, the university would take care of it. All of it. We were not to worry about money at all. And this was good. Because in addition to the natural worry for his health, at the back of my brain there had been this little wrinkle that I had not been wanting to acknowledge...My sister was frantic...I am sure that if I hadn't found the means, it would have been her on the first flight out to Paris....as it as, I was able to obtain my passport on Thursday and left for Paris on Friday morning at 5 a.m.

By the beginning of January, the commute was starting to get the best of him, the French children were no longer in their best behavior, most of his classmates were traveling across Europe, and worst of all, he was homesick...our dear friend monsieur 'K', was presently traveling across Europe and had made it a point to visit him in Paris... he was sharply reminded of home, the opportunity to just let go and take it easy....We spoke weekly, at 3 p.m. on Fridays, he would head down to the Mc Donald's on Avenue Victor Hugo, hook up to their Wi-fi and we would skype - my 3 pm. was his 12 midnight, and I was always aware that after we said our good nights he still had a few blocks to transverse, in the cold Parisian night - it never phased him, though, being on his own had made him somehow more mature, more responsible and brave...

 This child of mine, has never been one to put on airs, or to worry unnecessarily. That he left to the women in the family, myself, my sister and my mother. Of the three, my mother worries the most. She worries about every single possibility, no matter how remote. If something bad were to happen in say, Provençe, she would immediately try and get him to come back home, just in case... To this day, my mother still does not know of what happened in Paris.  My sister is a very detailed planner, she is the organizer, the orchestrator... the minute she meets someone new, she immediately starts planning their future, gets them a job and figures out the best way to obtain the best possible outcome...she also worries a lot though. Because she investigates and does all of the research she does know that things can and may go wrong - so she focuses on the myriad of possibilities, the good and the bad - and there is also the fact that she loves my son as if he were her own. And I know it. And I love her for it. Of the three, I dare say that I am the more relaxed and worry free, I kind of let things take whatever course they need to take, pretty much without interference on my part...( ..although I have been told many times that I am a control freak, I very much doubt it...really...unless of course, we are in the kitchen and I am doing a party, in which case...step aside, cause I work best when I'm the boss, and I do know what I am doing so, really.....), I am of the opinion that whatever is meant to happen, will happen. Good and Bad. And if it is good, it's great. If it's not, just let it slide....

He wasn't worried about walking a few blocks at midnight, during his first week in Paris, he had to cross the whole City at 3 a.m. Having missed the last metro after baby-sitting for a random woman, who didn't show up as promised, in time for him to make it! I also, want to think that there is a bit of me in him... it's not that he is invincible, not that at all, but that whatever happens, just will....

But he was tired, and homesick. so it was decided, during one of our weekly conversations that he should take a small trip. He had been working and studying non-stop, and he hadn't taken so much as a weekend off ever since starting his studies at the Sorbonne. Christmas had come and gone without celebration. so it was settled, a small 'semaine anglaise' should do the trick!

Among his favorite painters, Van Gogh has always been quite dear to him, he has always had a soft spot for copies of his work, be it thank you cards, small prints or framed posters on his wall, always present. So a trip to the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam it was! www.vangoghmuseum.nl Train tickets were purchased. He was to leave Paris on January 29th.

He found the cheapest accomodations possible...I doubt that in all of Paris, anyone can rent a room for less than 270 Euro a month! And  mind you, this was in the 16th arrondisement - one of the fanciest neighborhoods in Paris, populated at one time by Napoleonic aristocracy, titled nobility - and more recently Maria Callas, the opera singer... He tells me this is the most expensive corner in Paris, the Beverly Hills, if you will...mere blocks from the Champs Elysées, a glorious walk along Avenue Victor Hugo, and minutes away from the Eiffel Tower, via the Trocadero... very central, very chic....

And then again, one must take into consideration that said room was a mere 5 by 6! Yes, you read that right, the size of your average American closet... Picture a twin bed, on a platform, perched above the 'clothes closet' and a mini fridge...directly across, a mini sink, a small counter and a cabinet...the toilet was shared with 30 other tenants, and showers were to be taken before 9 p.m. at the landlady's apartment 3 floors below - did I mention already that the room was on the 7th floor? and not accesible via elevator either...!  Nevertheless, it did have that je ne sais quoi feel about it.... you could, on your tiptoes, get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower from the tiny window above the sink..and what a view it was - a million tiny lights twinkling every hour on the hour for ten straight minutes... beautiful! Yes, this was Paris alright... and home  for the next 11 months, give or take...

I saw the building, via google earth, and the surrounding area...I vicariously walked the streets, saw the sights, and explored the possibilities..How far to the Louvre...? Have you been yet...?How is the metro...? And your classes...? When do you start? Have you made any friends yet? Is it possible to get wi-fi in your building...? 

Classes at the Sorbonne began in September, he had class every day and went to work, baby- sitting for a French family in Nogent-sur-Seine. It was an hour's ride away from Paris, first by metro and then by RER - the metro serves Paris Central, and for the outlying areas, one utilizes the RER, sort of like the AMTRAK or BART here... The job itself was familiar, having watched his siblings as well as family friends over the years, the commute was not. He spent precious hours on the trains, hours that he would have much rather spent exploring and discovering even more fascinating aspects of the City itself...but that would come....

he did call, one day later. He hadn't realized that the tabac where he got the phone cards would be closed on Sunday... We are so used to having everything available, all of the time, we don't stop to think that different countries will not subscribe to the belief of instant gratification...everything is now....everything works, trains and buses run on schedule, stores are open, if not all night, at least really late, and pretty much every day of the year! Not so in Paris....the metro goes on strike it seems every other day, and when it is running, schedules are, at best, iffy.... you very quickly get used to waiting...patiently....because, where else are you going to go...? chances are, if the metro is not running, neither are the buses...so you can either get a taxi (expensive) or you can walk....like most parisiens...wearing black...

I started following his whereabouts, via google earth. earth.google.com For the first 8 days, he was at the 3 ducks, he had left the U.S. a week early because he really wanted to explore the City before he had to  check in at the Cité Universitaire, which is the dormitory for non-parisian students, his program only allowed for him to stay at the Maison des Etudiants Canadiens for 10 days, enough time to find housing.  

The University provided a liason in Paris, the micefa.org the organization provides among other things, housing referrals - a very lucky thing indeed, because that is how he came in contact with Madame Renaut, the loveliest of French women who would prove to be invaluable in the months to come....

3 ducks

what followed was a flurry of documentation, permits, passports, visas, letters of recommendation and endless trips to 'The City', where the French consulate is located, which meant several traffic tickets, but also opportunities to visit museums and parks we don't get to that often... this busy period culminated with a final trip on August 14th to the International Airport , where I watched my son dissappear into the crowd of travelers....there was no turning back. 

He had reservations at a youth hostel in Paris called 'The Three Ducks", www.3ducks.fr  which was chosen solely because of his nickname for me.  He calls me 'Ducky'.    I expected to hear from him soon after his arrival, if not precisely upon landing, at least as soon as he checked in.... how was I to know that he would begin to explore the City of his Dreams the instant the airplane landed...? At the other end of the state, my sister called constantly:"Have you heard...? Has he called...? What if.....? "So, in a panic, I skyped the hostel, which by now, conjured terrifying images of drunken european backpackers somehow taking advantage of my helpless son. They told me that indeed, he had checked in but was not there at the moment,  would I like to leave a message?  My message:

 "Tell him to call his mom, si'l vous plait?"

Not in my life plan...

I must begin by saying that, no, visiting Paris was never on my 'bucket list'...and not necessarily because I had anything against this lovely city - yet... It was simply not on my priority list...I did not, after taking my first French language semester, start plotting and planning on just how I would someday make it to the "City of Light", the way I know many students of the language do...

I am more of a realist. I am a stay at home mom. I homeschool my two youngest kids. Travel is expensive. Europe is far, far away. You do the math.

The Dream, however, was kindled in my oldest...he picked French as an elective in middle school, and immediately fell head over heels in love with the language, the culture, the food, the history... you name it - if it is remotely French or French-related, he'll buy it, eat it, wear it, read it..he is a true blue Francophone...Francophile...? And boy, does he like to show it off...!

So it came as no surprise, then, that in the Spring of 2008, he announced that he would be studying abroad for the year - at the Sorbonne, nonetheless...!