I Survived | GM Voice MENA

TRIGGER WARNING: The content in the article mentions disturbing incidents including conflict, war and death.

It was a cold winter morning in the year 2004 when two policemen unexpectedly arrived at the door of my family’s humble home in Dearborn, Michigan. Although I was only four years old, the image of the officers sitting on our living room couch is still vivid in my memory.

I was hiding in the hallway watching as my mother became overwhelmed with tears and fell to the floor. It wasn’t until a few days later that I learned my father had passed away in a car accident at work. We had lost the backbone of our family.

But my story didn’t end there. In honor of MENA (Middle Eastern and North African) Heritage Month, I want to share about my family's perseverance in the face of tragedy.

Two years later?

It was always my parents’ dream to take our family overseas to our homeland of Lebanon, and that dream came in June of 2006. My mother, sister and I spent the first weeks visiting various towns across the country, including each of my parents’ villages. But in mid-July, everything changed when Israel and Lebanon went to war.?

During the first week, we stayed on an upper floor of an apartment building as attacking aircraft constantly flew overhead. I remember my sister and I would draw Lebanese flags, hold them from our balcony, and scream for the planes to leave. For days on end, we slept and woke to the sound of terror and demolition.

One day, my sister and I heard an extremely loud explosion near our apartment. My mom embraced us as we panicked, and she instructed us to crouch low with our hands protecting our heads against the walls in the hallway. We later learned the cause of the explosion: a nearby gas station and a civilian building on our street had been bombed.

After this incident, we began sheltering along with other families from the neighboring buildings in a refuge underneath one of the apartments. It was dark, packed with hundreds of people, and had limited food. Realizing that this wasn’t going to end soon, my mother knew she had to find a way out of Lebanon.

The dangerous road out

We fled toward Syria alongside other local families and drove through mountain trails to avoid main roads. Whenever we saw or heard incoming aircraft, we immediately exited our cars to minimize the chance of being targeted by missiles.

The atmosphere was grey, and all around us were victims of the war and leveled buildings. At one point, we crossed a bridge only to hear a missile strike right behind us, demolishing the bridge and everyone on it. My mother embraced us tightly, covered our eyes and ears to shield us from the terrifying scene, and made sure we didn’t look back. A difference of a few seconds would have cost us our lives.

We finally reached the border of Syria, where the local people treated us like family and proved that humanity goes above all differences. We flew to Turkey then finally travelled back to Michigan, and our family was overjoyed to see us back home safely.

After 33 long days, the war was finally over. Like thousands of others in Lebanon, I lost family and friends, including a first cousin. Despite what happened, Lebanon was home — and our perseverance only proves the resilience, strength, and bond among the Lebanese people.

Becoming who I am

My story is one of survival, but there are many others across the globe who have lost their homes, their families and even their lives. There are thousands who are still suffering, especially in the Middle East, where tragedies are often overlooked and undermined.

Throughout my life, these experiences have shaped who I am. Alhamdulillah (praise be to God), today, my sister works at an automotive supplier as an electrical engineer in automotive passive safety, and I work as a head impact performance engineer at GM. Our careers serve as a reminder of the loss of our father, and we perform this work in automotive safety with the hope that other children can greet their parents as they return home from work, day after day.

I am sharing my story today in hopes that more people can see the person beyond our roles and look at each other through the lens of a human.