Detroit Free Press from Detroit, Michigan • Page 13

ym ym vrwvpmr J0 jt- i i 4 I J- J-f J. JV.f-A I Tuesday, April 29, 1SC0 mm vgm Inside this section ElllSHEBGSS pages C-IO ANN LANDERS 2 PTT BETH WINSHIP 2 RETIREMENT DIARY 2 i ENTERTAINMENT 5 BiiSAP DETROIT FREE PRESS Call Th Way Llva: 222-6610 FORDSON HIGH: An American Experience moil lhinni itds 0" New Arab arrivals cling to customs 1 I 1 "I like Fordson a lot. The professors help you out, and it's especially nice that some of the students and teachers speak Arabic. Everything Is easy here and you have peace." Sarwat Dourra ,4 By JOCELYNE ZABLIT Free Press Staff Writer Ibrahim Khaled's education was a casualty of war. When he was eight years old, his mother and father pulled him out of his West Beirut elementary school after the building was hit by a rocket.

His parents, whose dry-cleaning store already had been, destroyed by the shelling, kept him home for two years. "When I was 10, 1 worked as a car mechanic and after that at a tailor's shop," says Ibrahim, who never learned to read or write Arabic. In February, almost 10 years since his last school day, -'iKl Ibrahim Khaled started school, then quit. "It would be the nfcest thing if I could read and write, but. "I i if 'J 3 1 laajBHiBjBjjjBMHajBajBjaHMBMaaPIMM ---4 Ibrahim returned to school as a freshman at Fordson High School to learn how to read and write in the school's English as a Second Language program.

The fighting, death and destruction he had witnessed in Beirut were a world away: no sporadic shooting, no shells exploding in the background. All he had to concentrate on was the blackboard and what the teacher was saying in a language he struggled to understand. "I didn't want to come to school, but a friend encouraged me," the 1 7-year-old says, speaking in Arabic. "I feel as if I am nothing in class and I am uncomfortable. It would be the nicest thing if I could read and write, but.

When Ibrahim and his family came to Dearborn a year ago, he didn't enroll in school right away, thinking that his stay would be temporary and doubting his chances of accomplishing much in an -1 P'i, "American kld3 here are empty-headed. They talk about clothes, going out, nothing Important. I don't think I could be like the teenegsrs here. I think of my future rs being In Lebanon." Radwan Fadlallah unfamiliar language and alien school system. But two months ago, at the urging of his friend, Ibrahim decided to give it a shot "I am courageous, but I thought, how could at this age, go into a classroom where others could read and write? I preferred to stay away, he says.

"I try hard at school but I feel as if I am going back ward. "I thought there would be Americans in the classroom, but all the kids are Arab and I don't get the chance to practice English." After five weeks at Fordson, Ibrahim quit. "It took a month for them to accept me here, and after a week and a half I want to leave," he said during an interview before he decided to quit. "I am not learning as fast as I expected. If I leave school I would work to help my parents.

His story, though not typical of the majority of immigrant students, represents the isolation these teenagers face in a new school and a foreign country. I -r I Fresh from the war Of Fordson's 1,755 students, 40 percent are Arab origin, most of them from Lebanon. Of those, about half are recent immigrants, people who have left West Beirut or South Lebanon because of war. See NEW ARRIVALS, Page 4B The series concludes: Free Press Photos by PATRICIA BECK "I am more relaxed here. My nerves are better.

You weren't safe going to the store, and you couldn't walk alone safely. I want to keep the customs I had when I was In Lebanon. I want to stay conservative." Nadia Sahycuni Inside: Wafa Shuraydi shares her memories of adjusting to America, page 3B; believing In Islam, page 3B; meet Sarwat Teenagers take bilingual education classes at Fordson High School to develop fluency in English before joining regular classes. Dourra, Radwan Fadlallah and Nadia Sahyounl, page 4B. Photostory: The El Haj family: A new life in Dearborn, page 12D relationships New insights to widowhood 1 t' i r.

If "'nit I .4 4 Nudel, a social worker who spent much of her early career counseling the elderly, discovered that younger widows had a different set of problems. Her book is a guide for all who have lost a spouse, but it also offers specific advice for younger widows and widowers, who may experience greater isolation because few of their peers are widowed. In addition, she said, married friends may withdraw after the death. Young widows who have children must cope with their own grief but may also feef helpless to deal with their children's bereavement. Young widows' own parents may become overly protective or treat them" like children again.

In-laws may feel betrayed when young widows start dating again, and the widows themselves may have difficulty coping with feelings about "dating and grieving at the same time," Nudel said. Silverman's research found that mutual help groups composed of widows or widowers car provide effective counseling for the bereaved The Widowed Persons Service of the American Association of Retired Persons at 19C9 St NW, Washington, D.C. 20049, can refer p.opp to self-help groups where they live. In addition, Nudel said that widows' groups can be sought through local social service agencies, churches, synagogues and hospitals "If you can't find a group, you may be able to start one yourself," she added, "or ask your-clergyman to start one." FROM 1967 to 1973 in Boston, Silverman conducted the nation's first comprehensive research and treatment program for widows. Ultimately, the project counseled 300 widows in a mutual help program led by other widows.

The National Institute. of Mental Health used Silverman's model program in drawing up its guidelines for counseling widows in the nation's community mental health centers. In the early 1960s, Silverman said, "it was thought that widowhood was a six-week crisis best treated by psychotherapy. "After widows dealt with their feelings about the way their spouse had died, they were expected to move on," she explained. Commonly viewed from a medical and psychiatric point of view, bereavement was considered an illness that spouses could "recover" from, she said.

But Silverman and other researchers found that widows' bereavement was not an illness to be conquered, but rather "a normal process that could take two years or more to work through," she said. "It doesn't involve a return to so-called normalcy, but rather, it is a time of transition from which one emerges a different person." In her book, Silverman describes the normal feelings of widowhood, including a sense of disorganization, depression, anger, numbness By GLENN COLLINS New York Times The last two decades have seen a revolution in social scientists' thinking about widowhood and have brought a host of new insights about the way widows can best cope with loss. It is becoming increasingly important to spread this knowledge, Dr. Phyllis Silverman says, "be- cause so many of us will be widowed." Seventy percent of women age 75 and older are widowed, said Silverman, a professor at the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute of Health Professions in Boston. Nine of 10 married women become widows, and currently there are six widows for every widower in the United States.

Two new books are helping to spread the word about widowhood. In "Widow to Widow" (Springer Publishing Silverman describes her pioneering research with widows that began in the 1960s and new findings about bereavement that have influenced counselors and therapists nationwide. And in "Starting Over: Help for Young Widows and Widowers" (Dodd, Mead, 16.95), Adele Rice Nudel, director of the Widowed Persons Service at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, focuses on the problems of widows and widowers 45 and younger, a group that is, she said, seeking help in increasing numbers. Free Press Mustratlon by MARTHA THIERRY YOUNGER WIDOWS face distinct problems, Nudel said, "because this may be the first profound loss they've ever experienced. Often," she added, "their anger level is higher than that of older widows because they feel so cheated they never got to buy the first house or have that first chilctwith their partner.

There is so much unfinishetfbusiness." and the sense that the dead spouses are still present in their lives. "You cannot live your life as if the deceased person is still alive," Silverman said, "but it is important for women not to think they have to 'give up' the lost partner. The task is to find an appropriate way to let that person live in your memory." 1..