Monday, December 18, 2006
The Missing Groom
It is very rare that I will post an introduction to something I am copying and pasting here, but I feel that this story must be acknowledged simply as one of the purest, most romantically moving and inspiring examples of all attempts to describe, portray, define or experience "true love".
Nine years and finally the willingness to wait and the reluctance to settle, rewards the author with happiness that eludes everyone except those willing to risk everything in the refusal to break under fear of societal opprobrium and bone wearing lonliness. It inspires to never give up and never loose site of our dreams in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
December 17, 2006
Lives
The Missing Groom
By SOHA HAGE as told to KATHERINE ZOEPF
I dread this season, these weeks before Christmas in Beirut. I was 18 in December 1988, during the height of the Lebanese Civil War, and I was to be married on Christmas Day. But it didn't happen that way.
I met my fiancé, Emile, at my cousin's house, but we never spoke. I was only 15 and too shy. And at first, when my cousin told my father that Emile wanted to ask for my hand, my father said I was too young. But my parents invited Emile home, and he started to spend time with us, and I found that I loved Emile from the bottom of my heart. My parents said we had to wait until after I finished high school to marry, but graduation day finally came. And that fall, an unusually dry, windy fall, we started to get ready for the wedding.
A week before the ceremony, Emile disappeared. We called the company where he worked, and they said he'd left for the day, and his mother said he hadn't returned home. After a few days we could only assume that he'd been shot or kidnapped by one of the Christian militias that were fighting one another then. Emile was only 23, and he had never been politically active, but during those days many people became the victims of misdirected acts of retribution and violence.
I can't describe the devastation I felt. During the next three months, the fighting in Beirut got much worse, and my family had to move to a safer area. Even if Emile's family had news of him, they would not have been able to inform us. The battles were terrible, Beirut's neighborhoods were isolated from one another and there was no telephone and no electricity. People were simply stuck where they were. My family was convinced that Emile was dead. Still, he would come to me in my dreams, saying, "Wait for me." When you are very scared and you feel you have nothing to live for, you start to search your dreams for hope.
When the war ended and reconstruction began, I continued my studies and worked very hard, and I tried not to show my parents how much I was suffering. Over the years, from time to time, I heard rumors about Emile. Some said he died. Others said he was in Syria. Some said that he'd been liberated and had married someone else. There was no way to find out for sure.
I didn't want to meet any other men, but in our world it's difficult for a girl to marry after 25. As I grew older, my whole family began turning against me. "You're crazy," they said. "You're burning up your life." For a while, I dated a dentist, and even though I didn't love him, we became engaged. But as the wedding date neared, I realized I couldn't go through with it.
One day in 1997, nine years after Emile was kidnapped, my brother bumped into Emile's uncle in the street. He said that Emile was in Lebanon. My brother told him I was unmarried and working as a teacher.
I was in class a few days later when the phone rang. I usually turn the phone off while I'm teaching, and at first I wasn't going to answer it. But I did.
"Hello, Soha?" a voice said. And I knew it was Emile. For 30 seconds I couldn't move.
"Soha, I'm back," he said, "and I have only one question: Do you still love me?"
Seconds passed, I don't know how many, before I managed to say, "Yes."
I trembled on the way to see him, and when I did, my heart jumped. But then it was as if I'd seen him only the day before. It felt like when you take a cassette and you press Pause and then you continue. We couldn't believe we'd found each other.
Emile had suffered much more than I. He was held captive for two years, and he still has torture scars on his body. Finally he was put on a boat and forced to leave the country. The Red Cross in Cyprus helped him find his family, who had moved to Canada, and some relatives helped him get work in West Africa. He assumed I would be married; we had moved, and eventually he gave up on finding me. But then he came back to Lebanon to help start a company, and two days later my brother met his uncle. Five weeks after Emile's phone call, we married.
So, after nine years, I found my love, my future — everything I had lost. Now I have three girls of my own, and I wonder how my parents could have ever stayed in Lebanon during that terrible time. When the Syrians left Lebanon last year, we were so happy. The sight of all those Lebanese flags was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But that hope of a new Lebanon is gone. We are praying that the demonstrations now will remain peaceful, but if there's another civil war, I won't raise my children here. The weather this fall has been exactly as it was in 1988 — a little bit of rain in October and then sun all through November and early December. There's the same smell in the air, the same wind.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
Nine years and finally the willingness to wait and the reluctance to settle, rewards the author with happiness that eludes everyone except those willing to risk everything in the refusal to break under fear of societal opprobrium and bone wearing lonliness. It inspires to never give up and never loose site of our dreams in the face of seemingly overwhelming odds.
December 17, 2006
Lives
The Missing Groom
By SOHA HAGE as told to KATHERINE ZOEPF
I dread this season, these weeks before Christmas in Beirut. I was 18 in December 1988, during the height of the Lebanese Civil War, and I was to be married on Christmas Day. But it didn't happen that way.
I met my fiancé, Emile, at my cousin's house, but we never spoke. I was only 15 and too shy. And at first, when my cousin told my father that Emile wanted to ask for my hand, my father said I was too young. But my parents invited Emile home, and he started to spend time with us, and I found that I loved Emile from the bottom of my heart. My parents said we had to wait until after I finished high school to marry, but graduation day finally came. And that fall, an unusually dry, windy fall, we started to get ready for the wedding.
A week before the ceremony, Emile disappeared. We called the company where he worked, and they said he'd left for the day, and his mother said he hadn't returned home. After a few days we could only assume that he'd been shot or kidnapped by one of the Christian militias that were fighting one another then. Emile was only 23, and he had never been politically active, but during those days many people became the victims of misdirected acts of retribution and violence.
I can't describe the devastation I felt. During the next three months, the fighting in Beirut got much worse, and my family had to move to a safer area. Even if Emile's family had news of him, they would not have been able to inform us. The battles were terrible, Beirut's neighborhoods were isolated from one another and there was no telephone and no electricity. People were simply stuck where they were. My family was convinced that Emile was dead. Still, he would come to me in my dreams, saying, "Wait for me." When you are very scared and you feel you have nothing to live for, you start to search your dreams for hope.
When the war ended and reconstruction began, I continued my studies and worked very hard, and I tried not to show my parents how much I was suffering. Over the years, from time to time, I heard rumors about Emile. Some said he died. Others said he was in Syria. Some said that he'd been liberated and had married someone else. There was no way to find out for sure.
I didn't want to meet any other men, but in our world it's difficult for a girl to marry after 25. As I grew older, my whole family began turning against me. "You're crazy," they said. "You're burning up your life." For a while, I dated a dentist, and even though I didn't love him, we became engaged. But as the wedding date neared, I realized I couldn't go through with it.
One day in 1997, nine years after Emile was kidnapped, my brother bumped into Emile's uncle in the street. He said that Emile was in Lebanon. My brother told him I was unmarried and working as a teacher.
I was in class a few days later when the phone rang. I usually turn the phone off while I'm teaching, and at first I wasn't going to answer it. But I did.
"Hello, Soha?" a voice said. And I knew it was Emile. For 30 seconds I couldn't move.
"Soha, I'm back," he said, "and I have only one question: Do you still love me?"
Seconds passed, I don't know how many, before I managed to say, "Yes."
I trembled on the way to see him, and when I did, my heart jumped. But then it was as if I'd seen him only the day before. It felt like when you take a cassette and you press Pause and then you continue. We couldn't believe we'd found each other.
Emile had suffered much more than I. He was held captive for two years, and he still has torture scars on his body. Finally he was put on a boat and forced to leave the country. The Red Cross in Cyprus helped him find his family, who had moved to Canada, and some relatives helped him get work in West Africa. He assumed I would be married; we had moved, and eventually he gave up on finding me. But then he came back to Lebanon to help start a company, and two days later my brother met his uncle. Five weeks after Emile's phone call, we married.
So, after nine years, I found my love, my future — everything I had lost. Now I have three girls of my own, and I wonder how my parents could have ever stayed in Lebanon during that terrible time. When the Syrians left Lebanon last year, we were so happy. The sight of all those Lebanese flags was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. But that hope of a new Lebanon is gone. We are praying that the demonstrations now will remain peaceful, but if there's another civil war, I won't raise my children here. The weather this fall has been exactly as it was in 1988 — a little bit of rain in October and then sun all through November and early December. There's the same smell in the air, the same wind.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company
