Lebanon and the Five Stages of Grief
How long have we been stuck in denial?
Today, I called my psychiatrist to see how he was doing. Afterward, I saved an ant from drowning in my beer.
I had a dream this morning that I was somewhere. It was populated with people I should have known. It gave way to the light of morning, and through the gauzy haze of waking, I remembered where I was, lying in bed in a safe, intact house on a mountain, twenty kilometers from the destruction of Beirut.
I’ve had the theme of the Five Stages of Grief floating around in my head for about a week. I wanted the piece to be funny, like The Five Stages of Grief and Shopping Carts, or The Five Stages of Grief and the Mask Debate.
Of course, it hit me today what this article would cover.
The Lebanese are so patient. Now, I understand that it is pure Denial.
The Lebanese people are dedicated mothers to the wily child that is Lebanon. Try as we might, we cannot reign in the broken kid. In the microcosm, this population of ever-hopeful, ever-positive citizenry has fumbled and forged through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance many times over. The truth; however, hovers above us as a large and dark sky of denial spanning thirty years.
I moved here in 2010 at the height of this denial. American dollars bolstered and secured the Lebanese pound. There were cranes across the scape everywhere, and the rebuilding infused the left ventricle of this country with a surge of bright red, oxygenated blood. Alas, a strong heart beat can belie a deeper disease.
At the end of the Civil War in 1990, Lebanon was pummeled into near nonexistance. The stage of Denial was ignited by the Taif Accords, which rubber stamped a sectarian government of warlords. With all signatories on hand, a government was formed nonetheless, and people began to slap and mortar brick onto brick, and they took to the task of dumping pride in favor of unity and economic possibility.
Warlords are obtuse, self-aggrandizing hacks, and it didn’t take long for sectarian strife to pervade a nation still on its knees from war. Over thirty years, the conductors of Lebanon made sure that Christians remained wary of Druse, and Sunnis remained wary of Christians, and everyone kept a loaded gun of circumspection against Hezbollah and the Shiites.
With all of this division, the government spent three decades brazenly stealing from the treasury. In October of 2019, the people discovered that eighty-five billion dollars was gone — billions for development, for electricity, for resource mining, for education.
The Denial was so widespread that, when I arrived, in 2010, I felt I was the only person for miles around who balked that the schools were freezing, the roads were horrendous, the houses went dark for six hours every night, and Lebanon’s natural gas stores lay under the sea untapped. The Lebanese were so patient. Now, I understand that it was pure Denial.
Home improvement has been the chosen anti-depressant of the multitudes, and in the midst of total economic chaos, we hear drills and jackhammers waft over the valley as sweet as songbirds.
On October 17, 2019, the nation erupted in Anger, finally demanding that the political elite unsheath its hands from pockets filled with booty. Over the winter, the Anger flowed into Bargaining, and the people remained stalwart that a deal could be brokered.
Then, with more subsequent theft and panic-runs at the banks, American dollars began to disappear, and the Lebanese pound, once cruising at thirty-thousand feet, sputtered, and stalled. It began to yaw.
Then, COVID-19, well, you know that story.
The Lebanese pound fell into a nosedive. People watched helplessly as savings accounts vaporized and Lebanon emptied its contents at the feet of the whole world. Bargaining waned to Depression.
Even in these impossible circumstances, glimmers of promise popped up in pockets. It would help to realize that most Lebanese houses are built up of reinforced concrete, and many, our house included, have remained as shelters with a series of boxy, unfinished concrete rooms — no insulation, shoddy windows, scarce accoutrements.
People got stuck in their houses for so long that they began to notice the goddamnedness of the walls all around, and they started to ring up contractors. The contractors called painters, insulators, plumbers and electricians, and this created a spark of hope, until everyone realized the workers would be paid in pounds, which at this point are like magic beans.
For our house, we’ve already made some headway in the last few years to insulate the kids’ room and add new, energy efficient windows each time the money has come available. Home improvement has been the chosen anti-depressant of the multitudes, and in the midst of total economic chaos, we hear drills and jackhammers waft over the valley as sweet as songbirds.
Last week, I picked out insulating ceiling tiles, and we drew up plans to build a much needed storage closet. We were even entertaining ourselves with catalogues of beautiful flooring.
Yesterday, I was out on my terrace having a smoke, thinking of our daughter’s first year at college, thinking of having a beer.
Airplanes were dropping bombs on us, of this I was certain. The deafening bang which left my ears ringing was certainly just over the rise, the next town over, and they were coming for us.
The first explosion was alarming. It snapped me out of my reverie, but I stayed in my chair. It sounded close, but we have military bases around, and though I was horrified that there may have been a terrible accident, I figured me and Anthony would just talk about the loud bang over dinner.
These thoughts whirled around my head for, what was it, seconds? Or was it a minute?
A tremendous concussion, a hellish bomb, a shock that made the earth shake and turned my guts to water -
-was quickly followed by another of even greater magnitude.
In the wake of three fearsome bangs which had shuddered the earth beneath my feet and cracked the firmament wide open, I responded as if we were under attack. I ran through the house screaming OH my GOD!, and then just screaming, and then screaming WHAT IS IT?!
What is it?
Two of my kids were at the top of the stairs on their way down.
Only two. And then I was screaming for our middle son-
Where is AJ?
You want to hear something funny? As I stood there, with my feet dug into the tile of our front foyer, screaming at Anthony in abject terror, I noticed that, in between the fore and middle fingers of my right hand, was my lit cigarette.
I hadn’t dropped it.
Anthony was coming up the stairs as we were running down. Airplanes were dropping bombs on us, of this I was certain. The deafening bang which left my ears ringing was certainly just over the rise, the next town over, and they were coming for us.
We unlocked the door to the apartment under our house and we all shuffled in. I ran to the deepest part, the kitchen, a low-ceilinged, dim galley shielded by earth and rock.
I was shaking. I began to sob. My throat was on fire.
We waited for the next rain of bombs. They never came.
Then, we turned on the television. After, our phones were blowing up with video after video of the port explosion, the most hellish, upending catastrophe our little country could possibly endure.
We can’t endure it.
As evening fell, the breeze blowing through the rose of sharon and the lavendar was most peculiar. The cats were playing in the garden. The birds were singing in the trees. The locusts were lusty and loud.
Depression has given way to the methamphetamine of disaster response. The lists of needs are endless, so long that I don’t know where to begin.
Today, I called my psychiatrist to see how he was doing. Afterward, I saved an ant from drowning in my beer.
As I sit here, twenty-four hours to the minute after a panic I have never felt, I just realized that I have not once checked on my birds — a finch and a canary who share a cage in the front room of our home.
Oh my god, I need to check on Kazoo and Loretta.
Was it an Israeli strike? A cache of Hezbollah weapons? Was it really just warehousing malpractice?
Six years of ammonium nitrate, 2,700 tons, in a warehouse, six years of documentation begging the government to do something.
Six years of ineptitude and silence born of thirty years of rampant abuse.
You see, the cause doesn’t matter. Depression has given way to the methamphetamine of disaster response. The lists of needs are endless, so long that I don’t know where to begin. In true American fashion, am I to start a meal chain?
What the hell am I supposed to do, make chicken casseroles for twenty thousand families?
Today, in a testament so strong to Lebanon’s macrocosm of Denial, my husband entered the room where I do my online teaching. He wanted me to look at a few more samples of ceiling tiles.
The work is to begin next Monday.
This morning, I had a dream. I had a dream that I was somewhere, but now, I can’t remember.
Josie Elbiry, August 5, 2020
If you would like to see more of my work in creative nonfiction, here are some pieces you may enjoy:
