Parisian Antoine Leiris, told the attackers they 'will not have my hatred', as he prepares to raise his 17 month son alone
It's been three days since Antoine Leiris' wife, 35-year-old make up artist Helene Muyal Leiris, was killed while watching the Eagles Of Death Metal at the Bataclan. But as France tries to recover from the terrorist attacks that killed at least 129, and left hundreds injured, Antoine refuses to hate ISIS - because that's what they appear to want.
In a Facebook post that's so far been shared over 80,000 times, Antoine explains that raising his 17 month old son with happiness and freedom is the ultimate rebellion against ISIS values - and that he'll never truly be without his wife.
'On Friday night you stole away the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you will not have my hatred. I do not know who you are and I don’t want to know, you are dead souls.
If the God for whom you kill so blindly made us in His image, each bullet in my wife’s body would have been a wound in His heart.
I will not give you the gift of hating you. You have obviously sought it but responding to hatred with anger would be to give in to the same ignorance that that has made you what you are. You want me to be afraid, to cast a mistrustful eye on my fellow citizens, to sacrifice my freedom for security. Lost. Same player, same game.
I saw her this morning. Finally, after nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as she was when she left on Friday evening, as beautiful as when I fell madly in love with her more than 12 years ago.
Of course I'm devasted with grief, I will give you that tiny victory, but this will be a short-term grief. I know that she will join us every day and that we will find each other again in a paradise of free souls which you will never have access to.
We are only two, my son and I, but we are more powerful than all the world's armies. In any case, I have no more time to waste on you, I need to get back to Melvil who is waking up from his afternoon nap. He’s just 17 months old; he’ll eat his snack like every day, and then we’re going to play like we do every day; and every day of his life this little boy will insult you with his happiness and freedom. Because you don’t have his hatred either.'