Pack of Cards

By Madame Sosostris

This was a quite an emotional week for me, my sweets. I can't begin to describe the sadness, joy, pride and -- in the end -- overwhelming catharsis that I felt on Saturday night at the Press Syndicate headquarters downtown during the commemoration that was held in honour of the Weekly's late editor-in-chief Hosny Guindy.

Hosny was oh so dear to us all, my dears, and two months later, it is still hard to believe that he's really gone. Luckily, however, a great many of us have been working hard to keep his memory alive.

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Left column from top: El-Feki; Salama; Aref; Shukrallah; Ebeid; Abdel-Nasser; Beshai; Sid-Ahmed Clockwise from top: Hosny's framed photo on the Press Syndicate stage; the audience listens attentively; Salama offers his condolences to Moushira and Yasmeen; Lamis Abdel-Aziz, actress Lubna Abdel-Aziz, and the Weekly's Nora Koloyan and Heba Samir; Weekly colleagues (from left) Adel Ahmed; Said Salem, Faris Saad, Magdi El-Amir, Wahid Hanafi; Aref greets Yasmeen

Saturday's event -- which coincided with what would have been Hosny's 63rd birthday -- was the fruit of some of those efforts. It featured a bevy of prominent speakers who extolled Hosny's virtues as a journalist, and perhaps more importantly, a human being. Prominent political columnists and writers Salama Ahmed Salama and Mohamed Sid- Ahmed, Press Syndicate Chairman Galal Aref, head of parliament's foreign affairs committee Mustafa El-Feki, former parliamentarian Mona Makram Ebeid, and many others provided their own uniquely eloquent perspectives on the man and his life's work. The event's moderator was Mohamed Abdel- Quddous, a member of the Press Syndicate Council and friend of Hosny's, whose father, the writer Ihsan Abdel-Quddous, was one of the main inspirations for Hosny wanting to become a journalist in the first place.

Moushira Abdel-Malek, Hosny's wife, also spoke, presenting the audience with an eloquent and emotional look at her husband's life and career. Moushira said Hosny was not only a devoted husband, but her greatest friend and life partner as well, and that even though they spent a lot of time talking together, they always wanted more.

Weekly Managing Editor Hani Shukrallah delivered an address on behalf of Ibrahim Nafie, Al-Ahram's board chairman and editor-in-chief, before he embarked on his own set of remarks, which he delivered on behalf of the entire Weekly staff. Hani stressed several points in particular -- Hosny's strength of purpose, his amazingly personal and friendly relationship with every member of the staff, and his ability to bounce back after every serious illness that struck him.

Another of the prominent speakers -- Cairo University political science professor Hoda Abdel-Nasser -- also expounded on Hosny's positive traits, then tried her best to comfort Moushira and Yasmeen, Hosny's only daughter, by saying that they would always feel Hosny was with them whenever they heard people tell them how caring he had been. Occasionally, she said, they would find someone they didn't necessarily know recounting a particular incident that showed how generous and kind Hosny was. It was obvious she had had much the same thing happen to her with regards to her father, late President Gamal Abdel-Nasser.

Adel Beshai, a longtime friend of Hosny's, enlightened the audience about the fact that Hosny had wanted to study criminology in college, but that that field was not available in Egypt. Reine Naggar, an anesthesiologist and relative of Hosny's, gave a speech on behalf of Shaheer Farag, the doctor who was treating Hosny near the end of his life. The Weekly's own Inas Mazhar also spoke on behalf of Al- Ahram Al-Riyadi editor-in- chief Ibrahim Higazi.

Our dear colleague Nader Habib also put together a multi-media presentation featuring great video clips from important moments in Hosny's life, set to the soundtrack of one of his favourite songs, Nat King Cole's Unforgettable.

I can't begin to tell you, my loves, how proud I was when I saw the special magazine put together by the Weekly to honour Hosny, on every chair in the syndicate's grand hall where the event was taking place. A collection of everything that had been written about Hosny Guindy in both Arabic and English since his passing, along with a wide variety of personal and work-related photos, it will be something that I, and everyone else who loved Hosny, will treasure forever.