I& #39;ve just come from the Embassy of Lebanon in DC where I expected to find a crowd gathered in support and mourning. Instead, I found one man, lighting a candle.

This is Remi.

The first thing Remi says to me is, "I& #39;m not Lebanese. I& #39;m Syrian." He says he came because he immediately felt the pain of the explosion. "Instantly, the city was gone," he said. "It& #39;ll never be the same."

The pain of the war is on his face, and it& #39;s like a living, breathing thing. It seemed to leap off of him, like a child trusting it would be caught.

He lights three candles, one at a time, letting the wax burn and drip so that it makes a stand for each other. Remi says it& #39;s important he brought three, and shows me a bracelet he& #39;s wearing, with the Syrian Independence flag. Three stars.

Candles lit, he takes out a Lebanese flag he& #39;s brought himself, and holds it up in front of himself, glancing up and down the now nearly empty street. "Where is everyone?" he asks me. I don& #39;t know what to tell him.

As I& #39;m leaving, I take one last glance at Remi standing there, in front of the embassy, and its statue of Kahlil Gibran, and I remember one of the poet& #39;s great lines, "You may forget with whom you laughed, but you will never forget with whom you wept."