Dear Pap (dad)
In response to the 2750 ton ammonium nitrate Beirut explosion of the 4th of August 2020, I wrote a letter to my dad who passed away to tell him about it.
9-August-2020
Dear Pap (Dad),
When I think of how we are living, surviving, I am glad you are no longer here.
I am not sure if this explosion would have given you another cardiac arrest, and you would have died right then and there. I was not there. I was here in Brisbane.
It was an explosion on the port, but everyone in Lebanon felt it. Mom, Christy, Hilda, and Teta are physically fine. Halloune and Yonna as well. Maya, Nada, and Fadi’s houses were damaged. Nabil’s parent’s house was severely damaged. Even our neighbours the Melhems’ glass was shattered!! Can you believe it?
Do you remember how many times you went to the port, Pap? Do you remember how many times you warned me to stop partying and come back home right away from Gemayze? Do you remember how many times you told me not to go out after 10 pm? This happened at 6pm. No one could have seen it coming, not even you! (well except the assholes in their chairs).
When I remember the events of the 4th of August, I find parallels with your death. Awoken on the 5th of August at 5:30 am by 120 messages on my phone, the only thought that crossed my mind was: who died this time? Mind you, this was three hours after the explosion occurred due to learning to put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ mode, something I learned after you died. I am now wondering how long they waited before they called me to tell me that you died. I scrambled through my phone to try to make sense of what had happened to understand the full gravity of the situation. I didn’t the first time. I thought it was a mini targeted explosion like the ones we are used to. I guess that’s also part of being far away. Normalisation. Pap, it is all gone. All gone. More than 200 dead, 6000 injured, 300,000 displaced, and still some victims have not been found yet. Philippe Ariès said ‘only the dying man can tell how much time [they have] left.’[1]This time, I don’t think they knew.
Do you know that when you passed away, there was and still is an unbearable void. A cold emptiness. One that only grievers can understand.
Sometimes I try to describe it to my friends (remember Sontra?), or picture it:
It’s a hole. A physical hole in my heart. It runs so deep; it hurts so much that I need to grab my heart to make sure I am not dying. Pap, I am scared to say that this is worse. It feels like 2750 fathers died at the same time. It feels like you died 2750 times.
11-August-2020
Dear Pap,
I’ve had a recurrent dream ever since you died: you did not die you actually abandoned the family. Is this what’s happened here? Did the city abandon us? Or did we abandon it? Who died? the city or its people? Either, or, how do we live now? Or was it always about surviving? How do you survive with this hole?
The video showcases the process of incising the destroyed parts of the city while emphasizing the explosion's far-reach. The video is based on a NASA satellite mapping of the damage. Stories of people's damaged houses were also represented adding onto the mapping. The video is a first assessment of the catastrophe, as more stories from different areas turn up. The incision reveals the physical and psychological hole left behind.