Jihad Haidar holds a picture of his daughter Ohilaa at age 2.

For most members of the local Lebanese American community, the most timeless of all summer memories are created through trips back home.

But for Jihad Haidar and his wife Sabah Bazzi, a simple phone call in June was more than enough to provide them with the kind of warm, lifelong memories that have a way of shaping a person's identity.

It was then that the family made their first contact with daughter Ohilaa Haidar in more than 25 years.

The last time they had heard her voice before then, she was just two years old, more concerned with the simple things in life than the complex concerns of the adult woman she's become; a woman who was taken from her family as a child in mere seconds, forever altering the lives of her and her family.

It was March of 1985 when the Haidar family was on vacation, having headed north from Bint J'bail in the south part of Lebanon to visit their uncle, Haidar Haidar. Ohilaa Haidar was playing outside with her cousins and siblings in the city of Baalshmay Bhamdoon near Beirut when a gang of men took her from the front yard.

Her father Jihad returned from Beirut with his brother before hearing the news. He responded the only way a truly caring father would: by organizing a search party through the entire area, soliciting the help of people from four separate local villages in an effort to find his daughter.

Time passed, and the Haidar family became more and more desperate with each passing day for information. But the search initially proved fruitless.

Jihad Haidar's resolve only became stronger in the face of adversity, however.

He decided to stay in the town where she was kidnapped in order to stay close and gather information as to her whereabouts, giving up a job at Ford and leaving several small businesses behind to search for clues.

At one point, Jihad Haidar received a piece of information about a meeting of 14 people in a house in the area that were part of a kidnapping ring that was operating with the help of a local security officer; many of the 14 were Syrian along with two Lebanese members. An inside tip gave him the names of the people who had likely executed the kidnapping and he also learned that his daughter had most likely been transported outside of the country.

Kidnappings were a major problem during those days with the Lebanese Civil War making many parts of the country unstable.

Finally, after ten years of searching, Jihad Haidar returned to the U.S. He had almost given up hope, but somewhere, deep down inside, part of him remained hopeful that he would be reunited with his little girl again some day.

That day eventually came about this year thanks to a website called Panorama. A family friend saw a profile of a girl who was told she had Lebanese parents after bringing up the issue to her adopted family in the West Bank of Palestine.

That girl just happened to be Ohilaa Haidar, all grown up and married with three kids of her own.

Her brother Azzam contacted the website and the website contacted Ohilaa Haidar, setting in motion a process that would finally begin to heal the wounds her family had been nursing for so long.

Now, instead of staring into the dark night's sky wondering about the fate of their daughter, Jihad Haidar and Sabah Bazzi wonder about what questions to ask her about her life as part of the next day's always-fascinating d

Ohilaa Haidar and her parents have shared emotional conversations daily through the phone and the Internet while planning the day when they'll finally be able to re-connect.

A DNA test taken in Dearborn and sent to the West Bank confirmed the match recently, and Sabah Bazzi's question about a birthmark she remembered on Ohilaa Haidar was also answered, erasing all doubts that she is indeed her daughter.

For Bazzi, the reunion will mark the end of an ordeal she hopes other mothers will never have to deal with.

"Our whole lives were turned upside down, we used to feel depressed but now we feel completely different," said Sabah Bazzi through a translator.

Jihad Haidar now feels the same kind of relief as well.

"Before, when I heard anything about her story, I broke off crying, that's what I did," he said.

It was for that reason that the family friend originally was afraid to tell them about the profile of the Lebanese girl she had seen on the website. She didn't want to get their hopes up only to see them dashed again.

But thankfully for the family's sake, including two brothers and three sisters, she made the right choice and now the Haidar family feels whole again.

The've discovered the name of the man they believe to be the kidnapper, who is an alleged Lebanese spy for Israel before the south part of Lebanon was liberated, and who is said to be hiding in the southern part of Israel now after working as part of a ring selling to couples who were unable to conceive.

In the case of Ohilaa Haidar, her adoptive Palestinian parents were told that their her original parents were killed in the war.

But those are just minor details at this point for the Haidar family, whose emotional state right now can only be described as euphoric.

The family has sent a message to U.S. Senator Carl Levin of Michigan requesting help with paperwork and they look forward to planning a visit to see their daughter in the West Bank soon. They still own copies of her passport from when she was two years old as well as her birth certificate.

Jihad Haidar said that after so much searching, he had lost a little bit of hope in the past few years. But now, it's all in the past, and the family can finally move forward together.

"When I heard the news I felt like I was reborn, it's not easy waiting for 25 years," he said.

By Nick Meyer and Adnan Baydoun

Source: arabamericannews.com