Notes from South Lebanon, part 5: "Just a Hospital Visit"

What was intended to be a hospital visit to a dear friend turned to an intense time marked with this awkward feeling of being shredded from the inside.

We went there to support Fr Youssef, his wife Suzanne and his daughter Rebecca, to let them know that regardless of the painful circumstances, we still have them in our hearts and prayers. But the thing is we couldn’t keep quiet, worries were infesting us slowly from the inside and we had to ask about the community in Kfour, about those we know and those we barely met. And that was the moment we realized we are more involved in the situation than we ever planned to. Listening to the updates about the families was agonizing and feeling hopeless toward their situations only makes it sound worse. Some of them left the village and sought shelter with relatives in Beirut but others had to stay and live the horrors of the raids targeting the houses next to theirs.

We know those people, we sat with them, we shared moments together, we ate and laughed but that was in days we thought things couldn’t get worse or maybe we knew but down deep inside we hoped such days will never come.

As usual, Fr Youssef tried his best to be objective and to be thankful but words failed him at some point, maybe his physical vulnerability exposed the truth about how much pain he holds inside when recounting the stories of the families in his parish and in the surrounding villages that he encountered in the same hospital. Still he does his best to sound strong but we can clearly see how much the situation has shaken him especially that he was admitted to hospital right before the explosion while another man in his village with the same medical condition was denied hospitalization few days later when the explosions started and had to get specialized medical care at home, that’s if they could reach the house there nowadays.

Suzanne was trying to look fine while facing us but we noticed she was turning to the window from time to time to wipe tears escaping her eyes filled with pain. She would turn to us again and smile, we are the guests after all and she needs to be as hospitable as possible. Family members were still there in Kfour and the mere idea that people or homes could be wiped in seconds was unbearable.

A hospital discharge and a return home to Kfour was clearly their main focus, hoping that the situation would have resolved by then. The possibility of having to stay away would impose challenges that neither of them was meant to face.

We left them there in the hospital, wondering what would have happened if the raids started and they would have been stranded in Kfour and feeling thankful for a wicked kidney infection that spared them the agony of a one hour drive that lasted for up to thirteen hours for so many who had to flee on Monday and to endure overheating of the cars, running out of gas, hunger and thirst while heading North to the unknown.

A lot of emotions were taking us by storm on the way back, and a lot of ideas as well. But feeling like the useless servants as the Scripture mentions in the gospel of St Luke was the most striking. More fervent prayers, more sincere tears and mostly, more hard work were needed and we needed to start immediately, tomorrow never waits.