When my paternal grandfather passed away 21 years ago, my memory of him began to fade with the passing of time. But I remembered him vividly when I received an Israeli warning to evacuate Baalbek and its neighboring town, Douris, where my grandfather’s house stands. My immediate fear was for my father’s family and their children, worrying they might become victims of a massacre. The thought alone was terrifying, causing me sleepless nights and a pounding headache. Though the house was evacuated for just two days, as required for displacement, I feared for its walls as though I lived there myself, as though no place could replace it. It felt deserving of survival more than any grand palace whose stories are preserved.
This home, though modest in appearance, holds immense value. It has been a haven for my grandmother, who led a simple life, and a gathering place for her children, grandchildren, and extended family. I remember how my grandfather, a hardworking and dignified man, tirelessly worked to purchase a piece of land and eventually built a home on it. He lived in the house before he could even finish its details, completing it gradually with great effort.
I found myself recalling my childhood in that house, a place filled with dignity and tranquility. I remembered my grandfather’s face in vivid detail, the joyous and sorrowful moments shared there, and the image of my grandfather in his final days as illness overtook him. I could picture the bed where his body rested before the funeral procession took him to his final resting place.
Memories of that house came flooding back, including a mischievous moment from my childhood. In a corner of the house, I committed what felt like a grave crime for a child: imitating adults, I snuck cigarettes from a hospitality tray—a tradition in Baalbek—and lit them out of curiosity, unaware of how to inhale the smoke properly. My aunt discovered my secret but forgave me, letting the incident pass without punishment. Now, I worry about that same corner being destroyed, wishing I could return to it and light another cigarette, even if it meant angering my grandmother. Perhaps the smoke trails from my present and past could meet, their wisps intermingling, making the greatest concern nothing more than a child’s small mischief being discovered.
I am now outside Lebanon.
Three years have passed, during which I’ve tried to complete the mourning rituals for a homeland I was forcibly displaced from. Three years of attempting to reconcile with the idea that I’ve lost my country—a phrase that consists of just two words yet carries immense emotions and pain. I’ve tried to come to terms with the thought that there is no foreseeable return to Lebanon, even attempting to trick myself into accepting that I might never return.
I thought it was possible. I believed that by closing the screen that floods me with Lebanon’s news and walking under a colorful sky—one that shades the fortunate, free of children’s deaths, bombings, and curses—I could live in peace. I made an effort to accept a loss as profound as that of a homeland and to surrender to the idea that Lebanon is no longer mine. Yet, the war dug up buried memories, redrew the details of neighborhoods and the past, and intentionally deepened the wound. It confronted me with the reality that a homeland is an inextricable part of our identity—one that cannot be escaped by merely seeking refuge in survival or better living conditions.
The war escalated to the point where Israel obliterated entire neighborhoods in parts of Lebanon. Death came just meters away from my remaining family there. The destruction of neighborhoods where I lived, and where I befriended and loved people, feels like an assault on my memory. This aggression revives recollections long buried under the rush of life and new daily routines. I thought these new memories would overshadow the old ones, but the images of destruction revive past scenes I thought I had erased from my mind. They remind me of who I am, reorganizing a slow-moving reel of my life that tells me where I grew up, how I lived, and what I experienced—from childhood memories to the painful moment of forced displacement. As the reel plays, I am gripped by a fear that it is a farewell—an elegy for all that once was but can no longer be.
The war ignites within me a yearning to return to these places, now grotesquely disfigured. I don’t know if this longing is to search for what remains of those memories, now existing only in my head, or if it’s to hold a wake over what will be left once the destruction ends. Or perhaps it is just a naive desire to defy death.
Today, our children carry the remains of their fathers, and the cities—no matter how harshly they treat us—remind us, even in their destruction, that we are of them and always drawn back to them. These cities, distant as they may seem, continue to hurt us deeply as they are destroyed, severing the soul itself.
