When I came back from work I turned the radio on in the car. People were talking about a bomb and people that had been shot earlier in the day when I decided to change the radio station and listen to some music. I was probably thinking "once again people died, it's like this almost everyday in the news." I didn't pay attention to this... until 8pm the TV news time in France. I saw the videos of hurt people running outside a ruined building, the subtitles were "a bomb exploded in Oslo". I couldn't believe it! Speechless I went to turn up the volume when they started to speak about the massacre in Utøya. I had to sit down and cry when I saw there was about 93 dead people, most of them of my age or even younger.
My dad went to call our family in Oslo to make sure they were fine. Luckily nothing happened to them because they don't live in the neighborhood where the bombs exploded. Then I thought about the friends I went to school with 3 years ago. I went to my laptop and sent an email to each of my 8 friends. Being on my computer I went to check facebook to see if people were talking about it. The page "Norway" I was already fan of was full of love and support messages from people from all over the world. But even then I still couldn't realise it was true.
The next day when I woke up I immediatly turned my computer and the TV on to see if there was more information and of course if my friends answered. They were showing the destroyed streets in Oslo and the people crying. I had 2 emails saying "I'm fine, I wasn't there but I'm so sad." Later the same day, I received 4 more emails with almost the same words over and over again "safe but sad, shock, incomprehension". I was relieved to hear from them.
On sunday I went to the church with my dad and we prayed for Norway, for the dead but also for the survivors. It's going to take so much strength to live a normal life again, if they ever can. In the evening I watched the news again, for the first time I saw a video taken from an helicopter. The killer was with his feet in the water, surrounded by about 20 dead bodies. How can someone do this? Just before I went to bed I checked my emails again, hoping for the last 2 friends to have answered. I had one only. A really long one, so long that I knew something was wrong.. My friend started the email with "I'm okay" probably to reassure me immediatly. But when I read more I felt my heart breaking inside of me. He was there, he saw him, he heard the gunshots and the people crying and screaming. He's not injured because he was lucky enough to jump in the water with his friends and they were helped by someone on a boat. So it is real. It really happened. I read his email 7 or 8 times since I received it. I don't know why. Maybe I think next time I open my mailbox I won't see it and I will realise it was only a nightmare. Or maybe I just need to read it over and over because I feel close to my friend. Indeed I would like to hold him in my arms right now.
A minute of silence to remember, to realise, to think, to cry... Today at work I was silent all day, every now and then I had to hold back a tear when a colleague came to me and told me how sorry he/she was because they all knew I'm norwegian. They decided to hold a minute of silence with me. I think it's really nice. When I came home this evening I couldn't think about something else than the last friend who hadn't replied yet. He still hasn't.
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