Very recently I met a Lebanese descendant here in São Paulo. She's about my age and her father is 100 years old. What a biblical age! She is the most interesting person, very calm, very independent, a bit dark and very sweet. She told me the history of her aunt, her father's sister, who stayed back in Beirut. She was 87 years old back in 2006, she lived there throughout 1975-90. Married, several kids, many grandchildren. Life was getting better. When this last war started, on the day of the first sirens, her family, while helping her walking down the stairs to the building basement, saw her crying very much. They stayed down there, amid their neighbors, for the entire bombardment. The place was not hit and they could hear the bombs only far away. When the all clear sirens sound and everyone was getting ready to leave, with the younger pulling up the elder to their feet, then her sons saw she had passed away.
Niti told me it was not sadness or hysteria, only an option. Her aunt decided not to live through another war.
A.
