my friends in Syria

My daughter claims not to understand my outrage over the terrible things happening in Syria.
So this blog is aimed at making her understand some of the reasons it is very close to my heart.

I was in Syria in the early 1980 and formed several friendships, one in particular has remained close to my heart every since.

I met a man called Mohammad, he was a good man, a decent man and a very kind man.
In all honesty I treated him not very nicely, I was young and stupid, I valued his friendship, I loved him dearly as a friend but I was not in love with him. He was, he claimed in love with me.

Mohammad was not a poor man, far from it, but the details of his business, his family are not important to the purpose of this blog.

When I first started using social media, I had hoped to track Mohammad down to thank him for the friend ship that ended over two decades ago when my daughter was still very young, and catch up, like I did with other friends from back in the day...
I was unable to do that.

When I had my daughter, Mohammad asked me, as he had many times before, to marry him, so she would have a father, he wasn't her father, as it happens our relationship wasn't sexual. I said no, as I had many times before, because as I explained to him, I wasn't in love with him and to my way of thinking it was not the correct reason to marry someone.

He still stood by me, he still remains my friend.
When my daughter was born, it was him who bought her a posh new push chair, I had an old second hand one, he took me shopping one day an bought every girls dress in the Marks & Spencer & Littilwoods collections. I said no, he bought them anyway!

He offered to buy me a house, even had a deposit put on one of the posh new waterfront houses on the Clydesdale they were building at the time... I cancelled it, cos it wasn't my way of doing things.

I loved him, I valued him as a friend, but I was not interested in his money or position, which was apparently quite important, I was told he was in line for a political career in Lebanon where he came from originally, though he lived with his parent in Damascus where the family buisness was.

His parents didn't approve of his relationship with me, he was Muslim , I was not, however they did invite me into their home and treated me politely.

Mohammad took me and my daughter on holidays to Cyprus  & Italy, &I had several trips to London with him staying at the best hotels.
During a trip to Cyprus,  I was introduced to his best friends wife ,and dined at their home, I had met his friend previously but not his wife.

Our friendship was a long one & an important one to me, my parents, particularly my mother liked him, she called him MOMO, he was a good-un she said, & ticked me off for not treating his as well as I should have.

I was also friends with his cousin who lived in a different part of the middle east, who I also corresponded with a couple of times in letters, I like sending & receiving letter I always have.

The last time I saw Mohammad was at Easter around 1987,we celebrated Easter at my cousin home, but the day after, he was called away urgently as his sister had been killed, murdered he told me, in a political attack in her home,  she and her 2 children were assassinated.
Whither that was true or not, I don't know , I see no reason why he would have made it up.
Our friendship ended shortly thereafter , not on bad terms it just ended.

These days, as I watch the news reels and read the news about the terrible autocracies happening in Syria, I pray form Mohammad, I don't know if he's still alive, I hope so, I don't know if he has children, or if he every married, I hope so, cos he wanted that very much, and I hope he & his are safe and well.

I may not have been in love with him, but I did love him in my own way..., very, very much.

I met many nice kind ordinary people, from all walks of life, rich & poor, in Syria.
They showed  me kindness & gave me frienship & even support, in different ways, for different reasons at different times.

I'm not religious , but I pray for their safety and for their children's safety, and I have shed many tears these past two years at their plight, these  kind people I met during my two visits to Syria.

I abhor what David Cameron & his corrupt friends are planning for the people of Syria, because I know, without a doubt, that of those I knew personally, who may have survived the war so far, some of them will have died, or their family or friends will have, but even if by a miracle non of those I knew have their friends & children will have suffered in one way or another...
 and I know many more will suffer if these attacks happen.
People like the night porter who used to greet me every-night with a smile when I arrived back from work,
or the women who worked as a chamber maid,who cleaned my room, and ordinary woman doing a job to feed & cloth her family, in a job both I and my own daughter  have done in the years since I was in Syria, to feed and cloth our kids and keep a roof over their heads.

I think of Mohammad, when we were if Cyprus on holiday with my daughter, where she took her 1st steps, his excitement as she took them, and the case load of silly stuffed animals he bought for her every time he went passed the shop in the hotel foyer, some which I still have.
I fear for the children like she was then, living in the shadow of war, who may never get to take those 1st steps, or whose fathers & mothers may die before they see their children  grow up.

I look at  my grandson, living in relative safety, and I think of the man who could have been his grandpa had I made different choices, and I wonder if he, Mohammad, survived to see his own children &grandchildren  grow up, and I pray for then all,  I pray all my other friends in Syria & hope they are safe, those I laughed and joked with at work.

So, I hope one day my daughter & indeed my sons will understand why I have such strong connections with the people of Syria, and other places in the world where I have been, and made friends,
where ordinary people just like us live with fear from terror & attack, like that the UK & USA government is threatening Syria with now.

And although I know she doesn't remember him, I wish she could understand, that there is a man, who I hope & pray for & his friends & family in Syria, who loved her very much in her formative years and who wanted to be her daddy & who showed me and her kindness & generosity without condition, the likes of which I have never known since.