email us
I met my husband in college. I was asked by a professor to help some of the international students with English. My husband was in the first group. I'll call him “John”. He was from Abadan, Iran. We dated for a while, and finally married. He finished his degree, while I worked to support him. After a few years, he attained his B.S. degree from a university in Florida, and we made plans to go to Iran and live.
In preparation for my journey, I learned Farsi, learned about the culture and began to study Islam. By the time we were ready to leave for Iran, I considered myself a student of Islam. I was also the proud mother of a three-year-old son who was going to Iran to meet his father's family for the first time.
Iran was beautiful, the family was kind and generous and welcoming, the culture was charming, and Islam was the salvation of my soul. However, we couldn't find a job – I could, courtesy of an American uncle who worked in Tehran – but I politely declined. I thought it might be insulting to his family for me to work while he didn't have a job.
Unfortunately again, history was working against us since the year of our “return” to Iran was 1977. The mood in Iran began to change drastically, and we decided to make our way back to America where jobs awaited BOTH of us.
We returned to the U.S. in June of 1978. Four months later, our second son was born. Only months before the Islamic Revolution began to take form , God had given us a way out of Iran before it became impossible. Allah-o-Akbar. Those of you who were there, know what agonies we all faced during the dark period between Iran and America, as well as the horrible war with Iraq.
We had no idea where my husband's family was — if they were alive or dead. After many years a cousin finally wrote to someone we knew over here and we found one of John's brothers. He was working in another city. Sadly, John's mother had died during the war with Iraq — while feeding the soldiers and brave souls at the front lines in Abadan.
Some of his other family members had died as well, and unfortunately we could not go to Iran to be with any of them. We went through many letters, and finally phone calls — and even more recently, some emails.
Fade into the year 2000. My husband had to have emergency heart bypass surgery last year, around Christmas holidays. During that time, I prayed to Allah and all of the Imams so that my husband would be well again. The night before his surgery, I had a revelation in a dream — John's mother came to me dressed in her chador and with her was a very shiny lady in blue and gold.
She told me John would be fine, and that when he recovers I should go to Iran. I argued with her in my dream and told her that it was possible to travel to Iran, because of the situation between the two countries and because of our lack of documents. John's mother told me to relax and not to worry, that though it looked hard now, there would be a way and we would go to Iran.
The shiny lady told me to come see her in her city, and then showed me a beautiful city with golden domes on the buildings. She said when I came to Iran, I should feed 100 people in the name of John's mother.
When I woke up, I knew John would be fine. And fine he was, and after many years of not being able to get a visa or passport, finally we both received our passports from the Iranian Interests Section in Washington, D.C. When we got off the BA jet in Tehran, I was amazed by the welcome we received — not just my husband, but me as well.
Everyone was so kind and so happy to see us in Iran. We made our pilgrimage to Qom, as John's father told us that the shiny lady in my dream was actually Hazrat Massoumeh — Allah-o-Akbar! We truly went home, and were welcomed after 22 years. We were able to visit John's mother's grave and we washed it with holy water and found a cleric to pray over her grave every week this year.
I was able to tell her that I had fulfilled my promise — because when we left Iran 22 years ago, she had made me promise to return to Iran with John. I stood at her grave and told her that I had fulfilled that promise and that her son was here in Iran again.
I just would like to say thank you to all of you Iranian people who maintain this web site for all of us. It truly is wonderful to be able to jump on the web and read articles by and for Iranians, read current news and events and issues for Iranian people. You truly provide a link to Iran for many of us.
Although I am American by birth, I feel very strongly about Iran and Iranian issues. I also have Farsi as my second language, and Islam as my religion. Thank you for letting me share my story.
