THE MOURNING GESTAPO

Shall we stop this?

Let me take you back to the summer of 2014. I was hiding with my family deep in the boot of Italy for a summer vacation. It was there, by that rippling pool where I did my daily abdominal workout with my daughter (which had the sole purpose of being able to eat even more pasta afterwards) that a message popped in from Daan, our sales guru who is always on top of the news. A Dutch plane had been shot down.

From that moment on, the vacation had a mourning edge. We kept in touch with the Netherlands, I consulted with Jet and Josselin on how we could color Amayzine in such a way that we could pause for this sadness in our own way, and every chapel I saw, I went inside to light a candle. Personally, I find it difficult to keep sharing on social media how bad something is when you are not directly involved. I didn't know anyone on the plane, and if I were to flirt with it too much, it just doesn't feel right.

After a week or so, I made the immensely large mistake of posting on Facebook that I always have the bad luck that when I am abroad, it rains there and it is beautiful in the Netherlands. I believe I even made a joke that I am available for hire for parties and events. If you want to be sure of nice weather on your big day, you should send me abroad.

I immediately received a response from a lecturing former colleague. “Well, it's not that beautiful in the Netherlands, you know.”

The same thing happened again this weekend. The bizarre coincidence is that I went to Paris last Friday. For inspiration and fun, my magazine mom Harriet Calo and I made a round trip by Thalys. Just for that reason, I had already prepared our business newsletter a day in advance. One of the topics was a report of a visit that Jet made to Paris.

Because I was quite shocked by the whole event and thought of all my former colleagues living in Paris from Marie Claire and that I could have easily been part of it myself, I completely overlooked that entire newsletter. Moreover, there wasn't anything in it about why you should absolutely go to Paris now, but it was just a link to an article that Jet had posted earlier that week. Nothing inciting, and I think everyone understands that there was no malicious intent behind it. But yes, here we go again. The mourning Gestapo sprang into action.

Let's please not point fingers at each other. Just because people haven't changed their Facebook profile to the French flag doesn't mean they don't care at all. And let's forgive each other a small misstep. And let's not forbid each other from laughing again. If we let that happen, they really have us where they want us.