Facebook Opens A Portal To Long Lost Friends in Lebanon, Welcoming Me Back Into the 'Village'

Left: Chubby little me (third from left) with our neighbors; Middle: A bounty of green almonds in Dearborn; Right: With my best friend's sister in Chicago.

In Lebanon, green almonds, also known as “Loz Akhdar,” symbolize new beginnings and the arrival of spring. They are a tradition that evokes a sense of home and belonging. Coincidentally, last Saturday, while I was explaining the significance of these fruity gems to my daughter during a grocery shopping trip at Greenland in Dearborn, I started to receive random direct messages on Facebook from someone whose last name I vaguely recognized. It’s an occurrence that has become quite familiar in the past two years, as more and more friends and acquaintances from Lebanon have found me on Facebook, reached out, and reconnected despite an absence of almost four decades.

Thinking that the messages I was receiving were spam, I ignored them and went to lunch with my daughter. But the texts kept coming, followed by a couple of black-and-white pictures: one of me as a chubby little girl standing with three other kids and another of me and my mom with two other ladies. That’s when it clicked. It was our old neighbors from back home. Their mom was my mom’s best friend—almost like sisters. Their son—now all grown up—found me on Facebook and reached out.

Over the past two years, Facebook has become a portal to my past—a place where I have reconnected with dear friends from Lebanon who still remember me and my mom and have been trying to find a way to contact me despite an absence of more than 36 years.

I didn’t grow up with an extended family. Heck, I didn’t even grow up with a normal family. It was just my mom and me for 16 years. Yet, it was the neighbors and friends who filled the void and became more precious than family. Growing up in Lebanon, it was that “village” that held us up when we were barely surviving. There were the neighbors who showed up every morning and throughout the day for coffee, who invited us over to join their families for dinners, holidays, and celebrations, who braved the artillery fire to bring us bread and candles so my mom didn’t have to leave me and risk her life. There were the friends who drove long distances, risking their lives at military checkpoints to pick us up and take us to the mountains to flee the war. They were the family that my mom and I relied upon in our darkest hours, and they were the ones who checked on her and kept her company after I came to the U.S.

As if the universe has been listening, over the past two years, when I needed that “village” in my life the most, one by one, those friends and neighbors began to reappear through unexpected messages on Facebook: “Hey, are you ‘Dédé’ (my nickname growing up), Hayat’s (my mom’s Arabic name) daughter from Lebanon,”? or “Hey, remember me? I am so-and-so. Your mom was my mom’s best friend. You and I grew up together…remember me?”

The best of them all was my childhood friend’s sister, who drove more than an hour with her entire family to see me in Chicago last month. When I left Lebanon, she was eight years old—the “annoying sister” whom my friend and I used to kick out of the room so we could be teenagers. Yet, despite all those years, the conversations about “Dédé and Hayat” in our building never stopped. So, when we reconnected on Facebook, and she learned that I was going to Chicago, where she had recently moved with her family, she made it a point to come and see me. Because, in Lebanon, neighbors and friends are like family—they never grow apart, no matter what.

For the past few days, I’ve been getting to know our dear friend’s son. Although we are no longer kids playing in his parent’s garden, we have been reconnecting over shared memories, traditions, and values—over stories about my mom and me that he heard growing up.

Today, I am once again surrounded by genuine people who are filling my life with stories and memories, reminding me of what true friendships are like. Despite an eight-hour time difference, most mornings, I wake up to a slew of texts on WhatsApp or Messenger, along with pictures, well wishes, and stories, just like in the old days when I had to be up and dressed by 7 am, so I can help my mom tidy up the house and make coffee before the neighbors came over.

I left Beirut almost 37 years ago. Many people have either passed away or left the country altogether. Yet, the memory of my mom and me and our time in Beirut endures—passed down from parents to their children—some of whom I’ve never even met or met for only a brief couple of years. Yet, it’s as if I never left.

In the summer in Beirut, neighbors spend hours on their balconies or in their gardens, eating green almonds, drinking beer, playing cards, and simply enjoying life. I look forward to seeing all my friends in person again someday—hopefully soon.