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There is no death
AFTERLIFE 101 My Daughter's Story*! In April of 1963, our first child, Sahar, was born at the University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan. In July of 1963, my husband, Sami Makarem, and I set sail for Lebanon with our new daughter in tow. One year later, I was back on an airplane to the United States so that I could deliver my second baby in the same University Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, just as I had done with our first daughter. Five months later, I was back in Beirut with our two daughters, and we went on to live our lives as a young family. In 1968, after having spent almost six months back in America after an evacuation for the 1967 Arab Israeli War, we were again back in Beirut. Our daughters, Sahar, five and Rand, four years old, were happy to be back in school and home again with their friends in Beirut. The following year, in September, for Rand’s fifth birthday, I made the arrangements for a gala birthday party. Birthday parties are a big part of the social life for children in Beirut, and they are attended by all of the children’s friends. They are often given in luxury hotels, and when they are not in hotels, the homes are converted into places for quite a gala event. The house was beautifully decorated and the rooms were full of all of Rand’s friends. That day, the party was in full swing when the maid had to step outside where there was a pantry with soft drinks and other sweets and presents for the party. Rand, had actually been raised by this maid, Fayrouzzsa, and she was extremely fond of her; she followed the maid outside. Rand told the maid that she was very much pleased with her present mommy and daddy who could give her wonderful birthday parties, but her true affections were for her ‘real’ parents. The maid was quite taken aback by this perspective, a completely new design to her, and she had raised Rand since birth. The maid was a Moslem. She told the maid that this (my husband and I) mommy and daddy could give her lavish parties, and she loved us, but her affections were for her ‘real ‘parents; even though, her ‘real’ parents were quite poor. Rand told Fayrouzza her ‘real’ parents were financially unable to give her any parties at all. That evening, after the party had finished; the guests were long gone, and the girls were in bed, the maid told me and my husband about her conversation with Rand. I was stunned! Sami was speechless. Rand had been a completely different baby from Sahar. Sahar had been quiet and gentle from birth; whereas, Rand had screamed continuously from birth on ward. I brought her home from the same hospital that Sahar had been born in, and I gave birth by the same doctor that had delivered Sahar; yet, the two girls were as if each had been born on a different planet. At eight days old, I had to return to the hospital for the doctor to check Rand because she literally screamed from the day of her birth onwards.. The doctor gave Rand a sedative to be able to sleep. But to no avail! She continued with her screams. My mother, who had waited longingly for my return to America, was at her wits end, and my friends would come over to walk the floor with Rand when we were starved for sleep. When the day came for my departure to Beirut, I think my mother was relieved. In Beirut, the same thing – Sami who had waited so anxiously for us to return home was soon distraught with Rand’s continuous screams, as well. Sami had written me “100 letters.” (Letter #99 arrived the day I left and letter #100 came the following day.) All the time I was in America, he was longingly waiting for my return with our new daughter. The doctors in Beirut had little to offer that the doctors in America had not already told me. There was nothing wrong with the baby – period! At around age four, I took Rand to a child psychologist, Dr. Alaa' Eddine Droubi, to see if he had any suggestions because Rand continued to be highly agitated, and she would have tantrums for no reason, at all. The only person who seemed to be able to contain her was the maid, Fayrouza, a Kurd. She had escaped from her husband in Turkey before Rand was born, and I hired her when someone had brought her to me. Rand adored her! She was the only person that could tell Rand what to do. A few days after Rand’s birthday party, I tried to have a discussion with Rand about the conversation she had had with Fayrouza the day of the birthday party. Rand did not mind talking about it; on the contrary, she seemed anxious to tell me her story and give me all the details of her family. She told me that she was raised in a small village in Syria, Ein Arab. At the time, she only told me the village’s name began with Ain. Later, I learned that there is an Ain Arab near Aleppo where, it seems that, she lived a good part of her life. She told me that her name was Selma; and after she married, her name was Salloum, and she had a sister, Omaya. She had two children, Fadi and Siham. She called Siham, Sahoumi. She told me that her husband was a teacher in Aleppo, and he had died of a very bad disease, so she had to go with her children to live in the village because she could not manage on her own in the city. She also told me that when she and her sister, Omaya, were young children, their mother baked bread in the village, and she and Omaya sold the bread in the village. She said that they had to help pick the sticks for the fire for the coals on which a ‘saaj’ sat for the bread to bake. The ‘saaj’ is like a metal half of a football, and firewood is placed under it so that it will become red hot. Then, dough is flapped up and down in the air until it becomes quite thin and round, and it is thrown on the red hot saaj. Soon, the dough gets done, and the person peels it off of the saaj. They are then large loaves of thin bread. The loaves are placed on top of one another, and sold by the pieces. Rand told me that her mother would sit in a corner of the yard which had a fence. She described the fence to me which surprised me greatly because there are no fences in Beirut, and she was only three when she was in the United States after the evacuation for the Arab Israeli War. All of this was astonishing to me because there was no way she could have described a fence which she did quite elaborately when she told me her story. The year after Sami and I arrived in Beirut, 1964, we met Dr. Ian Stevenson. Dr. Ian Stevenson was the chairman of the School of Psychiatry at the University of Virginia, and at the time of this writing, he was Director of the Division of Perceptual Studies at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. He was just seriously beginning his studies in reincarnation when we met him. It was 1964, and he had been in Brazil investigating cases of reincarnation. Dr. Stevenson did not know Portuguese, but he knew French, so he got a person to interpret from Portuguese into French. The interpreter was a Druze from Lebanon working in Brazil, and when he learned of Dr. Stevenson’s work, he told him about the Druze’s belief in reincarnation. So, Dr. Stevenson arranged to come to Beirut to do more investigating into reincarnation cases. When he arrived, he went to the highest Druze clergy, Sheikh Mohammad Abu Shakra, who was the leader of the Druze. Sheikh Mohammad Abu Shakra knew Sami, and he told Dr. Stevenson to come to meet Sami who would assist him in investigating cases among the Druze who might be reincarnation cases. My husband was known in the Druze community, and there would not be a problem getting access to and talking with the people. By the time I had the conversation with Rand about her past life, I had met Dr. Stevenson three times because he began to come to Beirut every year. So, after the conversation with Rand, I wrote a letter to Dr. Stevenson about what had happened at the birthday party, and my conversation with Rand afterwards. On Dr. Stevenson’s next trip to our home, he also talked to Rand. Here is Dr. Stevenson’s diagnosis after that conversation with Rand. Rand, in her previous life, had lived in a very remote and primitive part of Syria. She was reborn in the most advanced hospital in the world in Ann Arbor, Michigan at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor. Dr. Stevenson believed that the cultural shock was too much for the soul, i.e., going from a very primitive existence in Syria to the most highly staffed and equipped hospitals found in the United States. Dr. Stevenson told me that the soul tends to remain among familiar surroundings, and in this case, she was born in America after having lived, most probably, many reincarnations in Syria. Then, she was born in the United States, and she returned to the Middle East when she was just five weeks old. I had left America for Beirut the day after her passport arrived in the mail which was the procedure then. One could just run to the airport and buy a ticket at the counter to where one wanted to go. However, Rand was born in the very modern and advanced hospital and was later raised in Beirut. Her living in Beirut was also a shock to the soul. I remember, when she was about five years old, my mother had sent me the dresses that belonged to my niece who was six years old when Rand was born. There was a red velvet dress that was decorated with beautiful white lace. Rand would insist on wearing the dress at home from the time she was about three years old. She would don one of my white veils which I wore to funerals because of the traditions in the Druze community. The dress was long on Rand, and with the veil on her head, she looked exactly like the Syrian women I would see in Damascus when I lived in Beirut and visited Damascus. Then, she would tease her sister, Sahar, and tell Sahar that she not her ‘real’ sister. She said that her real sister was Omaya. Sahar would come crying to me. I would always tell Rand to stop teasing Sahar, which I thought Rand was doing. This activity went on for a time. Then Rand told us her story, and I reaslized that she knew she had a family from the time things became cognitive to her. One day, Rand told me that she was sad at the end of her life because her children, Fadi and Siham, had promised her that they would never leave her. Rand had had a hard life, and she was beginning to show her age, and she wanted her children to always be around her. But, she said, when they grew up, they went off and got married like everyone else did. Her voice was full of sarcasm and bitterness when she told this part of her story to me. As Rand grew older, she told me of the poverty that her ‘real’ parents encountered, and how she and her sister Omaya lived. She said that her father made the furniture for the house. He would use crates and pile them with the cloths which were muslin bags that the sacks of flour they bought to make bread came in. The cloth sacks were plain woven fine white cottons for domestic use. It is believed that muslins were first made at Mosul (now a city of Iraq). They were widely made in India. The cloths would cushion the boxes to make the chairs. Rand’s father also took pieces of wood, and he would carve holes in the corners for pegs to make table legs so that the piece of board could serve as a table. Ironically, to this day, Rand is extremely resourceful and inventive, and she is an artist, as well. Her designs are exquisite, and they are truly her own; I had never seen any like them in any place. She no longer added new events to her story as she grew older. Yet, to this day, November 4, 2008, she remembers the story as she told it to our maid, Fayrouza, when she was just four years old in 1968. *Are these children cases of Reincarnation? |