If you have been following me on Twitter or Facebook, you will know what has been going on in my life as a resident of Paris’s 11th arrondissement. You will know that I walked by the site of the terrorist attack just after it happened, while taking my 7-year-old daughter to dance class.

My kids’ school is a block away from where shots were fired at the police car. (There are bullet holes in windows at the end of the block.) My children’s father lives literally around the corner from the offices of Charlie Hebdo. You can see the memorial site from his living room window. This thing happened in our backyard.

My intention is not to draw attention to myself. I did not lose a loved one. (Thank the gods.) I do not know any of the victims. I can’t even imagine the pain their families and colleagues are going through.

But I have not hidden my reactions or feelings. And, as a storyteller, I needed to tell what I saw during the last two days. In my tweets and FB messages I have been reacting…just like anyone else would…to a horrific terrorist attack happening way too close to home.

However, telling the story through words and pictures has not been enough. Reassuring my friends and loved ones that I and my children are safe has not been enough. I have been hit HARD with the impuissance—the powerlessness—of those who sit at the edge of a disaster and can’t do a damned thing about it. I’m not a firefighter. I’m not a policeman. I’m not a policy-maker. I’m a novelist.

As soon as news got out about the massacre, the outpouring of support from my readers was overwhelming. For many, I am the only person they know who lives in Paris. For a few, I had the honor of introducing Paris to them through my books. Everyone who has read the DIE FOR ME series knows how I feel about the city. My love for it is jam-packed into every page of those books. So the messages of support and love and care started pouring in.

And in many of the notes, I recognized the same desperation I was feeling. People wanted to DO something. But what is a teenager in Missouri going to do? Or a grandmother in Canada? Or a college student in India? Without really thinking it through, I offered to write down personal messages and take them to the memorial where the people of Paris could read them.

You—my amazing readers—jumped on the idea, and very soon this happened:

and then this.

But when I was done, I looked out the window, and thought, What in the world am I going to do? I just wrote 123 cards from 17 countries—in non-permanent magic marker—and it’s pouring down rain and shows no signs of stopping.

My friend Cassi had seen the photos on Instagram and texted, offering to help. When I told her my quandary, she suggested that we “laminate” the cards with clear packing tape. I bundled up my precious cargo, took it to her place, and we spent the next hour wrapping each message in tape.

We finished just in time to pick my kids up from school, and I enlisted them to help me tape the messages up to the memorial site. Barely one day after the murders, the site was already starting to overflow with messages and flowers.

My kids jumped into the project with enthusiasm and this became…

this. And…
this.

And then this guy asked me what we were doing…

I explained that I am a writer, and that my readers from all over the world had asked me to pass on their messages of goodwill to Parisians. And because of my conversation with him, this happened:

Daily Mail, Night That the Lights Went Out on Eiffel Tower

And then this guy…

who had no ID and didn’t introduce himself like the Daily Mail guy did (okay, the Daily Mail guy didn’t introduce himself until I balked when he asked my son’s name) started asking me unanswerable questions like, “What is the overall feeling here about the events?” (Umm…)

My son was simultaneously bugging me for more scotch tape, and too much was going on, so I gave some really distracted answers and later thought, “I hope that whoever that was doesn’t use the footage.” But then my 5th grade teacher from Alabama wrote to say she saw me on TV, and writer Amy Parker sent me this picture.

In any case, when my kids and I left the site yesterday, it looked like this:

Yes those are YOUR cards taking up one whole wall of the memorial.

Well, someone wrote to say they had seen the cards on Brazilian TV, and someone else saw them behind Anderson Cooper’s head:

and then everyone who hadn’t yet written a message wanted to join in. So I got back on the case this morning, and this happened:

33 more notes from 14 countries (and then 6 more arrived just after I took the picture). As you can see, I ran out of white note cards and had to start improvising.

So I returned to the memorial and posted the new ones.

But before I did, guess what I saw.

People were reading yesterday’s cards. Carefully. They were filming them. Photographing them. They were visibly touched by the outpouring of support from people all over the world.

As soon as I posted those pictures to Facebook, I began getting more requests. And you know what? I can’t say no. I just can’t. I’m going to keep on posting your messages.

I want to do this for my readers: for people who are far away and feel just as horrified and helpless as I do.

I want to do it for Paris: to show them that support is not just coming from other governments and nameless faces. It’s coming from real people who are signing their names to their notes—people from all around the world.

And finally, I admit, I am doing this for me. This is the best therapy I can think of. I can’t bear to just sit in my apartment minutes away from where a group of smart, courageous and creative men and woman were slaughtered. And thanks to you, I don’t have to.

Thank you with all of my heart for giving me the gift of action.

Thank you for helping me empower my children. They see that they can actually DO something to help people heal after something horrific happens. They see that everyone can have a voice.

Thank you for the honor of passing your words on to people who will be blessed by reading them.

Thank you.

From Paris, with love.

Amy

This post is continued here.