FIRE IN HER EYES PODCAST
A podcast about women who persevered! Stories and conversations with and about resilient women.
FIRE IN HER EYES PODCAST
Unyielding Spirit: A Mother's Perseverance In Times Of War
In this heartfelt episode of "Fire in Her Eyes," I sit down with my mother to explore the profound strength and resilience that defined our lives during the Lebanese Civil War. Through vivid memories and emotional stories, my mama shares how she navigated the chaos and danger to protect me and my brother, embodying the ultimate sacrifice and love. Join us as we delve into a narrative of courage, survival, and the enduring power of a mother's love.
Hello and welcome to Fire in Her Eyes. This is a podcast about women who persevered through pain to find peace and purpose. So if you're looking for a little inspiration and motivation to sustain you through difficult times, join us as we share stories of women who were empowered through pain and transformed struggles into sweet success. I'm your host, Tanya Skowronski. Fire in Her Eyes is a podcast about women who persevere. When I think of that, I immediately think of my mom. As I've mentioned before, I was born and raised in Lebanon. I lived there through the civil war. My father was a physician who would often get called to go to the hospital to help with wounded soldiers. So my mom... a lovely young woman in her late 20s, early 30s, was left fending for herself and her children. Those were very difficult, dark times. I remember moments vividly. But I asked her to join me on this episode to document some of those stories. I wanted to understand from her perspective what it was like for a young woman to put aside her own heartache and fear to be able to defend her children and keep them safe. I wanted to better understand how she found the strength and the resilience to persevere through those difficult times until we finally moved to the U.S. about a decade later. So I'm joined today by my mom and my husband, Dan. Mom, Dan, thank you for being here.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for having me.
SPEAKER_00:Thanks. I'm so happy that I get to document some of these stories, not just for my children's sake, but for their children one day. I want them to hear the stories directly through my mom's perspective. So the stories are as authentic and accurate as possible. Mom, one of the things that I remember to this day is that you always had with you a small Samsonite makeup bag. And you had that makeup bag filled with medication and some money, I believe. And you would always take that with you when we would go to hide in underground shelters. Can you tell me a little bit about the time when we went to hide in a shelter that was not actually at the bottom of our building. It was in another building. I don't remember it exactly. And it wasn't really a shelter, was it?
SPEAKER_02:No. It was like a depot for whatever people have. They don't need to use. They put it down there.
SPEAKER_00:So it was really more of a storage space. We're not talking an actual shelter or bunker of any sort. It was just a storage space. Because in Lebanon, we lived in buildings and apartments. They weren't independent homes like they are here now for us. So why did we go hide in that shelter? Do you remember? And can you tell the audience a little bit about that one incident?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because the building we lived in didn't have a shelter. So the shelling was very intense that night. So we had to run to the other building, which had supposedly a shelter. So I took you there, and the... holding your hands, your brother's hand, carrying the Samsonite, you said it's full with medication, a blanket to cover you in case you get cold, and another bag full with medication and serum bags. Just, we need it.
SPEAKER_00:If we got dehydrated so you can start an IV line for us.
SPEAKER_02:Yes, yes. So I took you down to that shelter. And I hardly laid a blanket on the floor for you to sit. We saw a big rat pass over your head. So I panicked and I decided I'm not staying. You might, you know, he bite you or something. So I decided to go back home. But the shelling was so intense all around us, and we can hear it's hitting the buildings. So finally, a young man about 16 years old, he said, ma'am, I can help you. I'll carry your daughter for you. You take care of your son so I can take you back home. So we came back home. And I was scared that something is going to come inside through the windows. So I had to pull a big armoire slowly but surely, slowly but surely to cover the window. So just in case some shrapnels come in. And from the sharing you can see the... chandeliers up in the ceiling, dancing, back and forth, shaking, back and forth, back and forth. Finally, we sat there all night in one corner, all three of us, until the morning, you know, they had a ceasefire, supposedly, or the shelling was less intense. So we... We're able to breathe.
SPEAKER_00:Where was dad and were you in contact with him then?
SPEAKER_02:Unfortunately, phone lines didn't work most of the time. So when he left to go to the hospital, sometimes he was able to call me that he made it. Sometimes I never knew if he made it or not. until he comes back home.
SPEAKER_00:What's the longest amount of time he was away from home?
SPEAKER_02:About six months.
SPEAKER_01:Never coming home?
SPEAKER_02:Never came home.
SPEAKER_01:Wow.
SPEAKER_02:Never came
SPEAKER_01:home. How old were Tanya and George at that time?
SPEAKER_02:About seven and six. Wow. Seven and six, yes.
SPEAKER_00:Were there other people in the building living with us? Because I know it was three stories high, so six apartments. Six apartments, yes. So where were our neighbors?
SPEAKER_02:Our neighbors were in the building. Okay. All of them, everybody was in their apartment. So when we ran, we all ran. When we came back, we all came back.
SPEAKER_00:Okay. Do you... remember a time i don't know why we didn't stay in beirut the city itself i remember that it was a bunch of us i was very small but i remember there was maybe like 15 16 17 of us who were crammed into this one car and we went up somewhere i think it was in the mountains yes why didn't we go to the shelter that time why did we flee up to the mountains because
SPEAKER_02:and The shelling started again in a very, very, very vicious manner. Bombs were falling all around us. And one of the neighbors said, let me take you all women and all children up to the mountain. So we were 17 of us in
SPEAKER_00:one car. How do you fit 17 people in a car? I can't even understand that. We were like a woman
SPEAKER_02:sat on the seats. older kids sat in their laps, the younger kids sat in the oldest laps. So we were 17, between women and kids. And the gentleman who drove the car up. So was it safe to drive up to the mountains? It wasn't safe, but we had to, he said, we have to take a chance. So while driving the highway before we get up towards the mountains, we see shells falling on the highway before us. So we'd stop. And then a little while later he continues driving up until we got up to the mountains. So we got up to the mountains and it was an unfurnished home. It's a summer home that had no furniture. So every woman of us had a blanket or a towel with her. We laid them on the floor. So the kids, it's very cold up there, especially at night. So we laid the blankets and the towels on the tile, tile floor. And the kids slept this way all night up there. And we were hearing the shelling up all the way to the mountains, and you can see the rockets when they are passing over Beirut from the mountains. You can see it, you know, literally. So it was a very, very difficult day. Next morning, luckily, they had a ceasefire. So we decided to go back down to Beirut. So driving back to Beirut, especially in Beirut itself when we got into the city, you can't drive. All the debris from the buildings, all the glass covered the roads. And sometimes we had to stop and walk. The car won't go. You can't drive it. Finally, we made it home, safe. But it's something that I will never forget. Something, a night of hell that we never forget.
SPEAKER_00:Did Dad know that we had left our home and we had gone up to the mountains?
SPEAKER_02:No, no. The day we left, or the next morning before we came back down to Beirut, he came to check on us, but he had to go drive up the mountains and then come back down towards Beirut to the area we lived in. And it took him maybe three, four hours of driving to come check on us.
SPEAKER_00:But the hospital was close to our apartment. Why did it take him that long? Wouldn't it have just taken like 20 minutes?
SPEAKER_02:Yes, but the roads were closed. He couldn't make it. He had to take completely another different route to come.
SPEAKER_00:So when he got to the house and didn't find us there, how... How was he able to figure out where we were, if we were dead, alive, what had
SPEAKER_02:happened to us? He didn't know. There's nobody in the building. All the women are gone. No woman left. I mean, no families left. Only there was a little, small store next to our home. And the owner saw him, that he's looking for us, and he told him that everybody left at nighttime. There's nobody here. And the gentleman who owned the store, he didn't know where did we go. He told them they just left.
SPEAKER_01:He had to have been worried about you, right? Oh,
SPEAKER_02:my
SPEAKER_01:God, yeah. He was
SPEAKER_02:very,
SPEAKER_01:very worried,
SPEAKER_02:yeah.
SPEAKER_01:So mom, when you were in the shelters or you're in the middle of a war zone and you're in your apartment, I mean, how would you find food? We're so used to here in the United States, we just go to the grocery store whenever we want food. But again, you're in the middle of a war zone. How did you guys eat and what did you eat?
SPEAKER_02:Well, in Beirut, in every building, there is some kind of store, either a... either a grocery store or a butcher's place or a hair dresser. Like a vegetable stand. Vegetable stand. So this was not a problem. It's very close. It's very close to the buildings. I mean, you don't have to walk a long distance to get it. But sometimes people are gathered in front of the store to get bread or in front of a bakery to wait for their bread or their vegetable or something and shelling starts and few times people died while waiting in line to get their groceries or their bread from the bakeries. It's a war zone, war zone. So people, I mean, we tried to adapt, to live in a worse zone. And we lived one day at a time. We took it one day at a time as it comes.
SPEAKER_00:I remember one time we had been in the shelter for a few hours and we got hungry. So you opened the little box that you had taken with you. We stored like cookies and crackers in it, obviously non-perishable items because there's no electricity, there's no running water. And I don't know why, even as a child, I remember this. You gave me and George some cookies. And I looked at you and I said, Mama, aren't you hungry? Aren't you going to eat? And you said to me, no, I'm good. I'm not hungry. Even as a child, I somehow understood that you weren't eating because you wanted to save as much of the food as possible for us because you didn't know how long we would be in the shelter. And I remember how worried you were, wondering about dad, just wanting to hear some news, to know that he had made it to the hospital alive, because there was no way to communicate with him. The power of a mother's love for her child is really amazing. How you put aside your fears to protect me and Josh. And how you always stayed strong for us. I don't think we as children appreciated the level of danger or the trauma caused by war, but you always stayed stoic. I remember one time I got on the bus to go to school and you waited and you waved goodbye to me. And I remember as a child thinking, I wonder if today will be the last time I see my mom. Because so many times when we would go to school, while we're at school and the bombing would start, I remember they would evacuate all of us down to the ground floor of the school. And then they had to make the decision whether or not they would bus all of us home. Because the school doesn't want the risk of students dying because the bus gets hit by a bomb. But at the same time, they can't house all of these kids indefinitely. I remember moments like that so vividly, and I think it's because they were very painful. When you were in the apartment one time by yourself with just me and George, I remember all of our neighbors had fled. I don't know where they went, but we were by ourselves. Were you afraid of looting, of thieves who would go around to try and find empty apartments so they can steal? Was that ever a concern?
SPEAKER_02:No, I was never scared. I had a gun at home. Actually, two guns I had at home. And Dad trained me on how to use them. And we had a triple lock on our door, so I felt safe. Plus, we had a gate. down the stairs, you know. So I locked the gate at night, and the door is safe, and I have a gun. And no, I was never scared. The only fear I had is to die from shelling. That's it. And to keep you safe physically and mentally, not traumatized. So... We had to take it one day at a time as it comes. Some days were very calm, nothing happened. Some days, the part you spoke about, about school, that was my biggest fear because some days the school, would make an announcement over the radio that, you know, duty sharing, we're not going to send the kids by bus, so let the families come pick up their kids. And that was the biggest fear for me, too, to go get you from the school. You were in a different school, you and your brother. So, and where George went to school was almost like middle of downtown, very dangerous area. So, at George's school, they took them down to the shelter and they said, we are keeping the kids here for the night. Not to worry, you know, about their kids. Until we see, we hear about a ceasefire, then we can bus the kids back home. But with you, I had to go pick you up from school and bring you home.
SPEAKER_01:How far away was that? Because you couldn't just jump in a car like we do here in the States, right?
SPEAKER_02:No, maybe it's about five, six miles from where we live.
SPEAKER_01:Not too far. How did you get there? I drove. You did drive, okay. Yeah, I drove to pick her up. But it's probably dangerous.
SPEAKER_02:It's dangerous, yeah, but I had to take the risk. No other alternative because...
SPEAKER_01:She's your daughter.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I remember at some point Dad was gone for a long time And I missed him so much. I was such a daddy's girl that I went in your room and I went to his side of the bed and I would just sniff his pillow because I wanted to inhale his scent because I wanted to feel close to him. I had missed him so much. Do you know any stories of how dad got through the war when he was at the hospital for months at a time? How were they living there? How were they surviving there? What was it like?
SPEAKER_02:Well, they survived with the minimum that they were running out of food. They had to feed patients before anyone else. So for the doctors, for a long time, the only food they were able to get is the... Corned beef. Corned beef and mashed potatoes. They lived on those most of the time.
SPEAKER_00:Like plain boiled potatoes. Boiled potatoes,
SPEAKER_02:yeah. Not mashed, yeah. Plain boiled potatoes. Because they have to feed the patients before they eat. That's why. So that's why now he hates boiled potatoes and corned beef. He'll never eat them.
SPEAKER_00:Was I aware of that as a little girl? Did I know that that's how my dad was living at the
SPEAKER_02:hospital? Yes, yes, yes. I told you the story when your dad came back home and you heard the story about what they eat. So one day you went to school and I gave you your spending money to buy whatever you need from school.
SPEAKER_00:Like snacks or lunch. Snacks
SPEAKER_02:or soft drink or whatever. So you walked to the chaos to buy a snack. And you gave the nun one Lebanese lira. And she gave you back 50 cents, but she told you, asked you, you don't want anything else for the 50 cents? Or piasters in Lebanese. And you said, no, definitely no. My dad had been living on boiled potatoes. And corned beef for months, and I'm not going to spend the money. I feel bad eating more. This is how. And the nun hugged you and hugged you, and she said, oh my God, what a beautiful girl you are. You are thinking about your dad.
SPEAKER_00:I remember also many women saying, including you at times, wearing black for an extended period of time. Because I felt like, so as background information to our audience, in Lebanon, when somebody dies, you wear black as a sign of mourning. And there was so much death and destruction. We have neighbors who have family members who have gone missing. We, to this day, don't know what happened to them. Some may have been slaughtered, some were killed. I know some were shot by snipers, some were injured. So knowing that as you grieved these losses and you mourned, how do you stay strong? How did you remain focused? to take care of us, especially as oftentimes you were doing it single-handedly with Dad being gone. How do you stay so resilient in order to protect your children through all of this?
SPEAKER_02:I have to. I have to. I personally lost family members, cousins, aunts and uncles in the shelling. And most of the time we couldn't bury them because of the shelling. And some of them died, we don't know where and how. It was a very, very tough time. But God gives you the strength to keep going. You can't let go. You can't give up. You have to keep going and stay concentrated on what you have to do. So this is how we survived. I mean, it's a war. The word war, I hope nobody hears of that word. It's complete destruction, complete... losing your dignity, your everything. You know, you fight to survive. You fight to survive through a war. It's not easy. It's not easy. So, thank God we made it. We are alive. You are all safe now with your spouses and your kids. And thank God for everything. We made it. God gave us the strength to go through everything and survive it.
SPEAKER_00:So having witnessed and lived through such horror, How do you not become cynical? How do you not become jaded? I
SPEAKER_02:have to keep my faith, and my faith is what keeps me going, believing in God and, you know, with prayers. And this is how we keep going, a day, one day at a time. This is how we keep going. And this is what made us go through the war and get to a better well-being. And we thank God for every day. That's it.
SPEAKER_00:What is your ultimate hope for your grandchildren?
SPEAKER_02:My ultimate hope for my grandchildren to have a good life. free of wars, free of painful moments in their life, mentally and physically. And all the good luck for them. I hope they will all be successful in life, have good health, and peace of mind.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you so much, Mom, for these stories. I am truly in awe of your strength, of your resilience, of your determination, of your grit, and all that you did to survive that, protecting me and George in the process. And I'm forever grateful to you and dad for bringing us here to the US so we have a second chance at a peaceful life. I too hope that my children will never experience and understand the horrors of war. Thank you, Mama.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you for having
SPEAKER_00:me. Thank you. God bless you.