After an Aug. 4 explosion rocked Lebanon’s capital, a reporter wonders if he made a mistake by bringing his daughter into harm’s way
I trace the arc of the scar on my shoulder with a finger and wonder what created the U-shaped gash. I obsessively watch videos of the Beirut blast and try to figure out how it engulfed us in shattered glass, splintered wood and jagged stone. Sometimes, I still feel the energy of the shock wave radiating off my back.
Thick shards of flying glass left my 4-year-old daughter, Iman, with still-tender scars that she will live with for the rest of her life. The ferocious Aug. 4 explosion, which killed more than 180 people and wounded 6,000 in 10 seconds, is forever imprinted on our bodies. Our apartment was ravaged, our lives upended. Now, as the world’s attention shifts elsewhere, my wife and I have to decide how to move on. Should we stay in Beirut, where I have been reporting for the Journal for less than a year, or turn the page on our life in Lebanon?
We were among the luckier ones that day. We have friends with far more serious injuries and neighbors who lost relatives in the blast. We have been showered with support, while thousands of others in Beirut will never be able to return to their normal lives. We eagerly moved last fall to Beirut after three years in Washington. We loved taking our daughter to see the pandas in the National Zoo, ride the carousel on the Mall and take Bollywood dance classes at a community arts center.
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