 Loss of a good ear
... and a big heart
By N. Azadeh
July 1, 2003
The Iranian
My brother and I just came back from
a two week trip to Heidelberg, Germany, and London. My
brother, Pouyan, is six years younger than me (he is 18) and we
are very close and always manage to have tons of fun when we are
together.
We went to Germany to visit our 13 year old cousin,
Arman, and his dad. Arman is my pesar Khaleh . His mother, Ashraf,
was my
mom’s older sister. She died of cancer four years ago and
that is sort of the reason we went to Germany. You see, we were
very close to our Khaleh Ashi and Arman is like a little brother
to us, so we try to visit each other as often as possible to keep
close and make sure that he is doing alright.
I was really nervous
going on this trip, because I hadn’t been there since my
aunt died. As a matter of fact the only other time that I was in
Germany was when we were coming to the US in 1995 and stopped in
Heidelberg for about 12 hours. After we came to the US Khaleh Ashi
and Arman visited us for about ten days in Christmas of 1998.
I
was seven-years old when Khaleh Ashi left Iran and I only saw her
for a total of twelve days until she died in my mom’s arms
on February 18, 2000. She was 50.
I still remember the
night she left Iran. She had a room on the very top floor of my
grandmother’s house in the Daryano neighborhood of Tehran.
I remember going to her room the night before she left. She was
packing and my other Khales and a few of their friends
were there.
I asked Khaleh Ashi: "Khaleh, Haalaa nemisheh nari?"
(Auntie, is
there anyway you could stay here?) She hugged me and said, "Khaleh joon, mitooni beeyaayee aalmaan mano bebini." (M dear, you can
come and visit me in Germany). When I woke up the next day she
was gone.
I grew up in my grandmother’s house and so
I was and still am very close to my mom’s family. My grandmother’s
name was Iran and so we called her Maamaan Iran. She died of liver
cancer when I was ten. I remember every single minute of the day
she died.
It was a Thursday and my mom and Khaleh Manijeh picked
me up from school. My brother Pouyan was in the back seat. We stopped
by the store to buy some bananas, because that was pretty much
the only thing my Maman Iran could keep in her stomach at that
point.
My uncle Masoud (Khaleh Mahin’s husband), who
had been a political prisoner for eight years was being released
that day,
so the whole
family was at Evin prison. When we went to Maman Iran’s house,
she had made ghormeh sabzi. She went into the bathroom to wash
her hands and all of a sudden we heard her fall and she called
out for us. We called an ambulance, but it
was too late; she was gone.
It was chaos in her house that night. Masoud had
come home and relatives had come to visit him, not knowing
that Maman Iran had died that same morning. The
massive group of happy relatives and friends had turned into devastated
mourners. It was much like the wedding scene from Bahram Baizaie's
"Mosaferan". Anyway, Maman Iran was buried the next day. I cried
my eyes out. Even several months later, I could fully feel her
absence, but I was not old enough to sense the big gap
that her death had left in my life.
Khaleh Ashi and I had always been particularly close.
She used to take me to the theatre and movies all the time.
There is a
park in Daryano and it seemed like my summers were spent there
with my Khaleh and my cousin Arash, who is six months younger
than me.
I am the oldest grandchild in my mom’s family, and
so I was always spoiled rotten by my aunts and uncles. When Khaleh Ashi moved to Germany, we would talk on the phone all the time
and once I was old enough to write letters, we wrote to each other
every couple of months or so.
I had so much trust in her. I used
to tell her things that I would not tell my mom. She was always
so patient and rational and always tried to be objective. We became
especially close during the last four years of her life. I was
older and more mature and we could talk about so much more.
I knew
she was sick, but I didn’t know that her cancer had metastasized
until about six months before she died. She always sounded so well
on the telephone and told me that she was doing fine and was planning
to visit us in the spring of 2000. Even when my dad told me that
there was no hope for her, I didn’t want to believe it, because
she herself gave me so much hope and was always optimistic.
On
February 17th I came home from the university and found my mom
at home. I immediately knew something was wrong, because my mom
should’ve been at work at that time. She told me Khaleh Ashi had gone into a coma and that she was trying to get a visa
to go to Germany. We were not citizens at that time and we still
had to get a visa to travel to Europe.
My mom had talked to the
German Consul in Chicago and he had told her that she could pick
up her visa as soon as she was able. So, my mom went to Germany,
held her sister in her arms for 15
minutes until she died. We got the call at 3 in the morning.
My
dad and Khaleh Ashi had been best friends before my mom and dad
met and I knew my dad would be devastated. I went out to the living
room, held my dad and he broke down and wept like a baby. I had
never seen my dad cry before then.
I was in a state of shock and
devastation for a long time after that. I could not believe it.
I cried myself to sleep every night for a week and just as I was
starting to feel better my mom came back from Germany and rooz
az no roozi az no -- things went back to how they were before.
I think I was so crushed because I had and still
have so many regrets. When Khaleh Ashi and Arman visited us that
Christmas, I wasn’t
very nice to them. We had only been in the States for three years
and were trying to put our lives together. I hated my major at
the university and was in a cranky mood all the time.
Khaleh Ashi asked me to play the tar for her
(I have been
playing for 10 years now). But I only played for ten minutes,
because I wanted to watch a stupid show on TV. She tried to talk
to me about what
was going on with me and I completely shut down on her. I was a
total bitch and I will never forgive myself for that.
We got along
better
after they left and we even became closer. But I miss her so much.
Not a day goes by that I don’t think about her. Before my
mom left for Germany, I played the tar and recorded a tape for
her. I also wrote a letter to her and tried to be as cheerful as
possible.
She never gained consciousness and my mom said that they played
my tape at her funeral. That was such an honor for me.
I wish she
was here to see me go to medical school and play in concerts in
Cincinnati. I wish I could pick up the phone and talk to her and
bitch about my mom and friends. She loved Barbara Streisand and
Googoosh, and I wish she could go to a Googoosh concert.
Sometimes
I feel very selfish. Here I am feeling such a loss and
wanting my Khaleh all to myself while her son Arman misses
her every day. When we went to Heidelberg with my brother
we
went to
the cemetery and visited her grave in a beautiful
place surrounded by flowers and trees.
I cried and cried in my
brother’s arms for a good ten minutes while Arman washed
the grave and kissed the picture of his mother on the gravestone.
Arman told me he feels very angry that when he wants to visit
his mother he has to go to the cemetery. I would be angry as hell,
too.
I try to focus on the positive things I learned
from Ashraf. She was a midwife who helped women with special needs
give
birth. She always helped those in need, both in Iran and in Germany.
She loved life. She traveled to Europe a lot and had many friends.
She was beautiful and had a sweet voice. She was always there when
I needed her and she was like a mother to me. She loved her son
and they were very close.
The devastation I felt and still
feel over her death made me come to the realization that I want
to try to live my life so that I won’t have any regrets when
the time comes for me to go. I will let my loved ones know how
much I love them and how much they mean to me. I will try to enjoy
my life and always look at the bright side.
If I am diagnosed with
an incurable disease, I will let my loved ones know how I am
doing, so that we will have time for goodbyes and for the things
we want
to say to each other and the things we wan to do together.
 Sometimes I dream about Ashraf,
and every time she is happy and smiling. She was right about
one
thing; I did go to Germany to
visit her.
But I was wrong about her leaving me. She never has. She was
and will always be with me no matter what I do and where I go.
I can
only
hope to live my life half as well as she lived hers and be
loved half as much. I think that
would make her really happy.
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Loss of a good ear
