"To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,"

As I called my parents to tell them to get out of Tibnene (where my grandparents lived) I saw the constant bombardment of our hometown Tyr on TV. When I finally reached my father on his cell phone, he had already left and just arrived in Tyr. They hitch-hiked and walked and rode any vehicle heading north. His brothers and sisters and family and my parents' passports were in Tyr. I begged them to leave, to keep going, to find a way to Beirut, to seek help from the embassy to evacuate with other U.S. citizens. The onslaught continued. The phone was cut off. The TV reported a car with four people trying to leave Tyr was hit by a targeted airstrike. I missdailed several times before my frantic fingures connected. They were ok, but could not leave. My aunt sat in her house defiant telling me she would never leave, "they will not force me out again." My parents could not leave. No word from the embassy, no roads to drive, no bridges to cross, no shelter to seek. My parents usually laugh about things and tell me not to worry "what you've heard is far from us" Today my father said "Everything you've heard is true, but where do we go? Should we beg a cab driver and pay him $800 only for him to leave us stranded by the blown out bridge? Or should we try to drive ourselves out and get attacked like the last family?" I had no answers, only prayers.

"And thus I clothe my naked villany..."

My uncle's sister-in-law tried to pull herself up and help her two young daughters after one bomb hit their building, as neighbors came to help a second "personalized" bomb killed them all.

"But, soft! What light through yonder window breaks?

it is the bombs, and we are all damned.

As my vacationing cousin was contemplating an escape route for his family (there were no roads left and all the gas stations had been bombed), he stepped onto the balcony to ask his neighbor how he planned to leave. Before he could answer a bomb fell, silencing his neighbor and sending a shock wave that shattered the windows of his daughters' room and tossing him back. Unharmed and having no time to be shocked, he rushed his family into the car with little gas. It had only one trip left in it, he had to choose his route carefully. Speeding through banana fields his daughters complained of burning skin. Behind him he saw the white cloud cover the neighborhood. He pressed on realizing he just escaped the phosphorous bomb that could have burned their flesh to the bone. He had to get to Tyr in hopes of shelter. He called his other neighbor praying his escape was not far behind. He did, but not many others did as the neighborhood had been obliterated. The shelter was a dentist's office that was half underground and half exposed. The dentist was a relative, but he had his family and 24 others. He heard the stories of people driving away from the bombing only to be killed by airstrike. There was no other choice. Nowhere was safe. So he pushed on...