I started taking guitar lessons last week. I have been ‘playing’ for quite some time, but my skills are very limited, so I decided to take it up a notch and signed up for some actual lessons.

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Today, on Friday the 13th 2015, while my daughter was at school, I thought it was time to practice playing something before my next session.

I was searching through a variety of songs; Guns and Roses, Led Zeppelin, Train, Birdy, but then I came to one I couldn’t skip over. It was ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon. As I attempted to play the song to the best of my ability, tears streamed down my face…the lyrics were so beautiful and poignant.

Four hours later I came home after picking my daughter up from school and logged into my Facebook account. There were two notifications. One of them said: ‘Your friend, ‘Soleil Hare’ is safe in Paris.’ I had no idea what it was referring to, but I knew it wasn’t good. I checked the ‘trending’ newsfeed and my heart just sank.

No.

Not again.

Please no.

No more innocent lives lost.

I uploaded the latest news from Paris as I got dinner ready for my child and saw that my prayers were not answered and many innocent lives had been lost.

I grieved, I sobbed, I wailed. All I could think about was that this has to stop. We can agree to disagree. It’s okay to have different beliefs and live on the same planet.

I turned on the beautiful words from John Lennon, that I had attempted to play just several hours before, and cried and prayed that this would be the end of such senseless violence.

Just imagine…