A Garden of Suffering

I am not sure what took me down there.

It might have been the surrealism of reading about something happening in Lebanon - in the Washington Post - while I am in Lebanon.

This is a garden filled with broken pasts, tormented futures, and eyes drenched with memories.

For the past several months, mothers and families have been protesting in downtown. They want to know what has happened to their children – most probably taken by the Syrian regime – 20 years after they had disappeared ...

“My son was maybe your age at the time, probably slightly older. Allah yikhallik la immak.”

I went around, looking at portraits, asking questions. Pain hung heavily around me. There is a Christmas tree covered with handcuffs.

I am sick of this …

The pain of losing someone close is not unfamiliar to me, but we had the comfort – a strange word to use considering how lacking it was at the time – of closure. We knew …

These families live their lives in an abyss, drowning themselves with questions …

“He was supposed to come back in half an hour. I am still waiting.”

I had no words to say …

I am sick of this pain, these wars, these pointless deaths, these memories fraught with tears …

“I have not received news of him. All I have is my frayed hope that he is still alive. There is so much to tell him.”

posted by Lazarus, 7:34 AM