One of my colleagues is married to a Lebanese Canadian. His dad died a few weeks ago and he went back to Lebanon to bury him and be with his mom. Three hours after he landed in Beirut, the airport was bombed. Now, like all the other foreigners there, he has no way of getting out.
His mother’s house overlooks the Beirut airport. My colleague talks to him nearly every day, and when they’re on the phone, she can hear the bombing in the background. Always. He has helped his sister escape to her home in Jordan, and has helped other family members get out of the country. He does not want to leave, though, without his mother. The streets all around them are being bombed. They don’t know how much longer they’ll have a source of food and water.
If you’re the praying kind, feel free to add them to your prayers. All of our other worries seem so petty when you don’t know whether you’ll see your family again. It almost seems like too much to bear when you’re in the middle of grieving your father/husband’s death.