Ben C. Solomon
Appearances
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
hundreds if not thousands of sulimans who just believed that this could be their family member and it was just you know he had bushy eyebrows and he was gaunt and he and he looked like a face that so many people could just see their love in and see their hope in so in some ways it was really inspiring and in other ways it was really really hard to hear and see
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
Well, Suiman, he's kind of back to just the same place he started years and years ago, unfortunately. He doesn't know. There's no information. I still think part of him holds on to hope a little bit.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
I think even though he kind of has to say goodbye to this hope, to this moment, there's still a part of him that wants to think that maybe he's still out there and maybe there's something he doesn't know. This is not just Suleiman's story, it's the story of so many people in Syria.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
I mean, you hope so much that there's some happy endings for people like Suleiman, but there's some hope that so much of the suffering will have meant something. But as the new country just tries to rebuild itself from decades of pain and silence and war, it's hard to know what happens next.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
It was like, oh, this is, I mean, I immediately thought, wow, this is going to end with a happy ending. Like, he's going to find his son. We've got to follow this guy. When I went to Syria, I knew I wanted to find someone like him. I knew I wanted to find somebody that was actively looking for the family because there was hundreds of thousands of people that were missing.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
So we decided to start following him. And what we found was a much more complicated and much more powerful and also sad, but also hopeful story that spoke to the country at large and not just his case.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
So Suleiman told us that the last day that he saw his son, the son was trying to go out, trying to work. And Suleiman was like, just don't go to Damascus. Don't go to the city. Don't cause any problems. Don't, like, test it. Just stay home. He took the car keys away and hid them so his son wouldn't sneak off.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
This is a really poor family that was just trying to do whatever they could to make money. And so he and his wife were telling their son all the time, lay low, don't make a fuss, don't get in trouble, because they were just arresting any military-age man around that area. And then not long after the fighting started, his son went out, and then he just never came home.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
So for a long time, Suleiman told us they just didn't know. It could be any number of things. His son could have been killed. He could have been shot in some of the crossfire because there was a lot of active fighting all around that area back then. You know, they don't know. And for the longest time, he just like searched wherever he could.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
And Suleiman told me that they were always thinking of him. We were always thinking of him. We always, on any occasion, would think of him. We would cry and wish that he was there with us. He would have gotten married by now. He would have had kids. He would have had grandchildren. So we didn't forget him one bit. Not one bit. And there was always hope that we would find him.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
So when we first met him, he was just very kind, very gentle, and really just soft-spoken. It was clear that he didn't come from a lot of money, that he was a working-class guy, and that he just didn't know really where to turn. He didn't know how to approach this search, but he was going to do whatever he could.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
We would always pray and send him our prayers that one day he might return to us unharmed.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
This was a systemic machine of disappearing people that were opposed to the government. And so many people were being put in the same position where they just did not know what happened to their family members. And to say anything and to be loud about it and to push or to fight with the government would risk your safety as well. So, you know, he was suffering in silence.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
And like so many Syrians, there was no recourse to try to find what happened, to try to get any kind of justice, to try to get any kind of information. So it was just years and years of kind of waiting and kind of staying quiet.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
I mean, the reality of the situation in Syria back then was that it was mayhem, like so many different, nobody knew what was happening. It was just chaos. There was, nobody was in charge yet. There was no kind of like overarching mechanism for anybody to figure anything out. There was no government. The government had just left. So it was rumors.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
And a lot of the rumors that were going around were that some of these people that were coming out of the prisons did not remember who they were, did not remember any of their history, did barely knew their names.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
And at one point I asked him if seeing the video made him feel better or worse. And he said, of course, better. I was sure that he still exists. There was no room for doubt that my son is alive and that he's there and that he was released from prison. But I just want, I just am dying to find him.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
So it wasn't until the first time that I saw, I went to his house and he went through a photo album and he showed me the pictures of Shadi. And I took pictures and I went back to my hotel and I looked at them side by side, the videos of the man from the night that Sinai opened, the photos of Shadi before he was arrested. And I just, you know, I wasn't sure. I couldn't be sure.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
And I showed it to some colleagues and they weren't either. And it was just, you know, when you hear from a father, that that is my son 100%. You know, what can you say to that? It's either, like, who else would know? And a mother, too, Umfadi, his wife, was also just convinced that's him, that's 100% him, and we have to find him.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
It was such a crazy time that it felt not unlikely that his son might not just have been able to find home. They had moved from the original place where they had lived before. So it was a high likelihood that it was him. But, you know, days turned into weeks, turned into months.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
And then from afar, as I was just texting him on WhatsApp and just, you know, he would tell me no information, no information, nothing new.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
I think at a certain point, we kind of started to feel that maybe it's not him. It seemed more and more unlikely that this guy just had so much memory loss that he couldn't hit home. And that was when we kind of started digging deeper. That was when we started joining these Facebook groups, getting into these accounts of lost people, and starting to look for Shadi ourselves.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
We started looking for this photo, and we just put out word. Anybody could tell us any information. Does anybody know who this person was?
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
Finally, you know, after months and months of riding around, randomly just got a Facebook message. And a man wrote to her and said, hey, that's actually my cousin. And here's his name. And here he is. And here's his story. And then sent a picture of the same man wearing the same thing.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
I think he knew as soon as he started talking to them that this is not my son. And I think that was really tough to see.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
I mean, it was just a two-minute call, but in those few minutes, there was just these long pauses where he just kind of waited to kind of hear this man's voice and just think about what to say next. I mean, it was really hard to kind of see him slowly realize that this is not his son and that this is the end of his search.
The Journal.
A Syrian Father’s Journey to Find His Son
So many people were posting the same photo and their son next to it and their brother and their cousin. They thought it was their relative. it was hard to see these faces over and over of so many people seeing their sons. People were desperate. Like this is a country of desperate people with no information and for years just had given up hope. Like these are just,