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by Hummam Sheikh Ali
DAMASCUS, March 9 (Xinhua) -- In the Syrian war, as in every war, men mostly fight on the frontline, get killed, or flee the country. In the particular hard times, some women have shown their remarkable strength and determination to carry on with life after their husbands were lost.
Rania Malaeb, a 35-year-old mother of two, said the loss of her husband in an explosion near their home in Jaramana district in 2012 has turned her from a complete dependent person into a self-reliant one.
"Before the death of my husband I was a dependent person I relied on my husband in many things, I even relied on him to make coffee because he used to make it for me."
Working as a mentor in a sports club in Jaramana district near Damascus, she said her husband had supported her and their kids till the day he died. That's when everything changed for her.
"When he died I felt like I was falling into an abyss. It was like I was someone in the mountain alone with a valley in front of me. I felt I would either stand firm or fall into the abyss."
But in the midst of her sorrows, a beam of light shone on her, on her children and their future.
"I decided that I should stand on my feet, if not for me, for the sake of my kids. I have challenged myself and challenged the society in everything by my study, by raising my children, by my life at this house, and by my work."
After grieving the loss of her husband, Malaeb reopened a small bakery her husband used to run after coming back from his day job as an interior designer.
When she remembered that particular time, she started to sniffle. Her son Adam turned to her and said: "Don't cry!"
"I am not crying," she said, with a smile to cover her teary eyes. "I have for long been over the crying thing," she said.
She said she was under the watchful eyes of the community around her, the same type who considers woman lesser or inferior in this macho society of the country and the Arab communities in general.
She said that people would look at her in a strange way while working at the bakery, making thyme pies.
"It's not easy to stand in a place that people are not used to seeing you at ... people were betting whether I can or can't carry on. It's like they are saying to me that I am a woman and that I can't do enough."
Malaeb said she used to work at the bakery from eight in the morning till eight in the evening. When her children came back from school, they would come to the bakery to stay with her in a room she made for them "so that we can all be together."
The strong woman has not only proven herself at the bakery, but also entered university again to attend classes related to educational guiding, after completing her first university degree in fine art.
Wearing a pink sweater over a dark and high waist skinny jeans matched by a pair of knee-high black leather boots, Malaeb, with pony-tailed hair, said the society's perception of women must change, especially during tough times like the ones Syria has been suffering from for six years.
"I think that during this crisis that we are suffering from, the look toward women must change and the traditions that we have been raised upon, whether they are right or not, must change as well."
She said the crisis has shown that women are as capable as men and they can raise their kids, work and study all at the same time, something, she said, "men cannot do."
"There are many that look to women as inferior. I am wondering how many women in this country have become widows and ... are working hard. I know many widows who have children. They work and provide for them without needing anyone."
Malaeb said that her goal in life is to see her children have the best possible future, hoping she would still be able to raise them until the day of their graduation.
"For me, my dreams would be fulfilled when I see Adam, my son, wearing the university graduation hat and my daughter, Aya, wear a doctor's lab coat. I think even their father would be happy in heaven then."
Adam, a 15-year-old school student, said his mother is an angel for him and his 14-year-old sister.
"I look to my mother as an angel and it's impossible to find a match for her in the entire world and in terms of effort, we have seen her exerting tremendous efforts," he said.
