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2002: The eight-member family of Iraqi mother Karima Selman Methboub (r.) try to make their youngest son, Mahmoud, smile for a portrait. Mrs. Methboub has been selling furniture to pay school fees, though the family is more concerned about a possible new US-Iraq war. (Mr. Methboub was killed in a 1996 car accident.) Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2003: With the US invasion in full force, most of the children of Mrs. Methboub (r.), gather around their single lamp on the stairwell of their ramshackle apartment. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2005: Mahmoud, the 11-year-old son of Iraqi matriarch Karima Selman Methboub, apes movie gunslingers and local insurgents with toy guns at home in Baghdad. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2005: The Methboub family says it is determined to vote in upcoming Iraq elections, expecting that a new, Iraqi-elected government will 'change things for the better.' Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2006: The family watches television in their cramped living room in downtown Baghdad. Like most Iraqis in the capital, they have become obsessed with security, and minimize their time outside the apartment to avoid regular car bombs and other attacks in their neighborhood. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2007: Daughter Duha shows a homemade tattoo drawing on her arm expressing love for her recently engaged twin sister Hibba, as the family is buffeted by car bombs and blessed with two new engagements. Like legions of Iraqis too poor to flee the violence for Jordan or Syria, this family overcomes daily challenges in the Iraqi capital like having their windows blown out by car bombs, variable schooling, and constant power cuts that have worn out their generator Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2008: Matriarch Karima Selman Methboub (l.) and a friend keep vigil for the release of an arrested son in Baghdad. Iraqis and human rights workers charge that innocent people are often detained so police can extort cash from families in exchange for their release. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2008: Bride Fatima shares a word with groom Bashar as the Methboub family celebrates the wedding of their oldest daughter in Baghdad. The lives of this poor family finally begins to get better since the fall of Saddam Hussein, concurrent with a recent improvement of security in Baghdad and across Iraq. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2011: Ali, oldest son of matriarch Karima Selman Methboub, poses for a portrait in Baghdad. The family have often been rocked by drama, including Ali's saga during more than two years in detention in Iraq, where court medical documents indicate that torture was used to extract false confessions about kidnappings and killings. He was finally released without charge. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
Daughter Amal Selman (forefront) and Shimaa Emad Hussein prepare to make a class presentation at the American University of Iraq, Sulaimani. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2011: Amal studies in her dorm room in northern Iraq. The daughter of matriarch Karima Selman Methboub is one of 13 students on a five-year full US Embassy scholarship. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2011: Mrs. Methboub (c., in headscarf) and daughters Hibba (far l.), Fatima (r.) and a family friend stand in the room prepared for soon-to-be-married son Mohamed. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
2011: Methboub daughter Hibba, a psychology student at the University of Baghdad, holds up two professional portraits of herself in the family's living room. Scott Peterson/The Christian Science Monitor/Getty Images
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The Methboub family, which the Monitor has followed for a decade, has reasons for hope after dark days during which a son was wrongly imprisoned and a daughter's marriage collapsed.
They don't need to turn on the TV or walk down the rickety narrow staircase of their modest Baghdad apartment to learn the news: Car bombs have been exploding in this family's district of Baghdad again, their percussions felt everywhere.
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