MY GRANDFATHER SURVIVED THREE WEEKS OF BOMBING

By Hayan Charara

Last time I saw my grandfather, I was a sophomore in high school. My 

family barely traveled to Lebanon, and he wasn't the sort who liked 

leaving his village, Bint Jbeil. He owned a restaurant and a house, in 

both of which he raised nine children, the oldest of whom was my 

mother. I talked to him on the phone regularly enough, but my strongest 

impression was from the visit he made back in 1987. He was a bit fat in 

the belly, the way I expected a grandfather to be. And while it was my 

father's side of the family I imagined being "tough" (believing 

wholeheartedly in "like father like son"), it turned out that this 

trait belonged to my mother's father. Mind you, he wasn't 

mean-spirited. He was just a guy who helped his wife raise nine kids, 

plus lived in a country that went through a civil war and a few 

invasions--that'll ruffle anyone's feathers.

A day ago, he was featured on news broadcasts around the world. No one 

had heard from him since the bombings in Lebanon started. A man in his 

80s, living mostly alone, we--his children and grandchildren--didn't 

know what to think. Some of us thought the worst, some hoped for the 

best. I have to admit, I'd say things like, "He's probably in his bomb 

shelter," but after seeing images of Bint Jbeil on the Internet--it 

looked like those cities in Hollywood films after a meteor strikes 

earth--I pretty much thought him a goner.

But there he was, showing up on TV. Beat-up, battered, frail the way 

any person is after hiding in the same spot for three weeks would be, 

especially an old man--but alive.

My grandfather owes getting rescued to his daughter, my aunt Fadia. Her 

son arranged for a Saudi TV crew to take his mother down from Beirut to 

Bint Jbeil--well, all the way isn't possible given the destruction, but 

close enough. Anyhow, She risked her life and headed for Bint Jbeil, 

which is located about five miles north of the Israeli border. Anyone 

who's watched any TV or read any blog in the last couple weeks knows 

how foolish this act was--it's about as suicidal as the drive to the 

Baghdad airport. Except, the "word on the street" (as so many 

journalists like to say) is that while ambulances and civilian convoys 

may be hit by Israeli air strikes, TV crews, apparently, don't have to 

worry about this. Doesn't make sense, but that's another story. My aunt 

went to find her dad.

She made it as close as possible, with the crew filming her every step. 

On the way through the rubble of the town she grew up in--same place my 

father’s house is located--she walked past dozens and dozens of 

corpses, some in boxes. This, a strategy meant to deter dogs from 

eating human flesh. And she found him. Ali--that's his name. He'd run 

out of food. He'd run out of water, too, and his medication. He's 

really old, and he didn't have his adult diapers either. He was bed 

ridden, with the usual sores. The fat belly was gone, too. Common 

knowledge is that TV cameras adds ten pound to the body. The cameras 

focused on him still couldn't make his body look like more than a 

skeleton. But he was alive. Not well, but alive. And that's the most 

any of us had wished for.

He survived the missiles, the bombs, the gunfights, the tanks, and so 

on. I like to think he represents the spirit of the Lebanese people. 

That if I'm lucky, I've got some of that same determination in my 

blood.

Yesterday, my grandfather, Ali Dabaja, became a “hero” of sorts. And I 

expect that today, or tomorrow, the journalists will feature him again. 

This old man, who survived so much, was taken to a partially wrecked 

hospital in Bint Jbeil. And a day later, early in the morning, he died.