When Ziad Rahbani died, everyone and their mother went to social media to report about him, how he affected their lives, how they once crossed him on the street (and obviously annoyed him by talking to him when the man wanted nothing but obscurity), and the list goes on. But also, all cameras were on his mother, our national icon Fairouz. Anything she did sent people into a frenzy of analysis.
The woman is 91 years old, lost her husband in 1986 (and no they were not divorced as some people say), her daughter Layal in 1988, her son Ziad in 2025, and was also in the middle of a huge family dispute in terms of the authorship of the songs written by "the two brothers Rahbani" (Assi and Mansour, both dead now) and a life where she is almost not able to live normally following her status not just in Lebanon but in the Middle East as well.
Fairouz, accompanied by her daughter Rima, during the funeral and the condolences would try to be as inexpressive as possible but as I said above, any iota of emotion was incredibly well-dissected by people on social media, trying to interpret things which most likely they have no idea about.
And now Fairouz has lost her second son, Hali at the age of 68. The boy apparently was incredibly handsome but had a case of viral meningitis at the age of 6 months and grew up incapacitated. I read an article whereby Fairouz locked herself in the room for six month doing nothing but caring for the child, only when understanding that her true mission was to go out and sing and enchant people did she leave her self-imposed isolation. But also, it was said that she insisted on caring about Hali herself - which obviously, as she grew older and as he grew older as well must have been a challenge.
But Fairouz, born Nohad Haddad, is actually a bereaved mother and is suffering these losses with no private space to mourn, to grieve, to feel, and to reflect. Everything is happening with little or no privacy.
We all need to be away from the spotlight to assess the loss of loved ones.
Nohad is no exception.