The Full Years of Aida, Op-ed

By Dr. Hadi eltonsi – Former Ambassador and Medical Doctor

When Fate shocks us for reasons beyond our mind with an event that we don’t deserve when the future comes to an end, and the flame of hope is put off, when life loses taste and dreams lack sweetness, we can’t then go on as if nothing has happened, as if life is none sense and man is an unconscious machine that just breathes and works. So we may resort to our past to regain vitality thru our roots. We swim in the seas of memories going deeper in search for meaning and significance. We live a reality that has vanished and a dream that became an illusion, to accept and assimilate, to submit to the will of God, and go on in life.

She was an only daughter for her parents, who together with the grandmothers surrounded her with abundant love and care. An absent-minded child living her fantasies with fun and creativity, fighting in a demanding education to face realities, to achieve according to expected standards while adapting to European and Latin cultures that polished her talents and experiences and defied her intellect and soul.

In her first four years of age, she spoke four languages and in her full life, she visited more countries than her twenty-two years.

A girl searching for insight and holding strong to her genuine pure nature while having fun, painting, dancing, or lovingly listening to music and watching nature or kindly dealing with the needy and animals.

However she wouldn’t forget that her curriculum requires attention to studies that doesn’t go along with her hobbies and talents, so she favors feeling of responsibility and positive thinking till she succeeds and achieves, then finds a study that deepens and provides theoretical background for her travel experiences in a university study of cultural and social anthropology, where she excels and polishes her personal wisdom in a world of civilizations collision or dialogue.

She then embarks on series of practical training courses in diplomatic missions and various media, where she was surrounded by admiration for her friendly, kind, helpful and attractive character reflecting the warmth she received from family and friends to the extent that we were overwhelmed by the flood of statements of love, consolation, and prayers.

Aida could in her young age gather between purity and maturity, between spontaneity and wisdom, sincerity and friendliness, between achieving rights and decent ways, insight, and harmony with life and nature. Two of her friends told me that she changed their life with her opinions while in high school, a third told me that she would live inspired by Aida’s spirit and ideas.

Did Aida in her short full life early learn life lessons? Did she fulfill her life mission that fast? Was her noble spirit too high for a normal life with all the good and bad, the sweet and sour? Whatever are the answers, God’s will is above all, and so was done.

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