I don't know if you read my 9/11 “diary” of last year — published in the Iranian.com on Friday, September14, 2001, entitled:
“I am tired: Terrorized Iranian's journal of hope”.
In it, I described what I did the in a span of three days after the big tragedy. Among many other things, I talked about Armin Pajooyan, the 9/11 baby of Tucson, Arizona. You can , on the hospital's cute baby blanket, on September 11, 2001, about 14 hours after the New York tragedy, when he is barely 3 hours old.
In the next few paragraphs, I have stitched together my comments about him in the “I am Tired” article. First I invite you to read my thoughts of last 9/11, and then I will burden you with some more thoughts of mine, for today — Wednesday September 11, 2002.
First come with me to the past:
Among other things that I did yesterday (on September 11, 2001) was to phone and congratulate an Iranian friend whose new son was born at 7 p.m. I told him: “What a day to be born, what a day!” He said with his customary habit of understatement: “I have had a hectic day.” My friend's American wife, the baby's mother, and the Iranian-American newborn are fine.
I have not had time to go out and buy a gift for the newborn. I have decided to take as a gift, a ceramic vase that my older uncle (dayee jaan) brought for me from Iran several years ago. I don't have the time or the talent to properly gift wrap the little cobalt blue vase, in some nice box covered with some nice gift wrapping paper. I am taking it in a grocery bag. I know it is not graceful, but I figure they would recognize my intent, and would forgive me for being a regular guy. Afterall, my friend is a male football player, and the baby is a boy. His mother will have to understand our apparent collective lack of appreciation for beauty.
It is now 9 a.m. Friday Sept. 14 and I am back from my friend's place, where I didn't get to see the little Armin, who was reportedly in sound sleep in the back bedroom. In the 15-minute break in between the two periods of the football game (Iran vs. Bahrain), as we were eating breakfast, Armin's proud papa showed off his very first picture.
With his large, open, and very alert eyes, Armin was “reflectively” looking to the side, his little right fist underneath his chin. I said: “Wow, look at those eyes, he will become a philosopher.” His footballist father said: “He is asking, should I shoot or pass the ball?” As we were laughing, I silently wondered if the fragile infant was reflecting on the meaning of being born, as an Iranian-American, on Tuesday September 11, 2001.
Having been born on 9/11, perhaps tiny Armin Pajooyan, of Tucson, Arizona, will grow up to be an ambassador of peace for the whole world. What will our planet look like when he grows up, say when he is in his 50s, the same age as George W. Bush? Will he be on his 43rd birthday as tired as I was yesterday? Will he have to prove that he is not an evil terrorist? I am tired of worrying about the stupid state of our fragile planet.
Can we understand, no, cherish, the meaning of the vulnerable words he wants us to read? With his tiny fingers he is turning the page for US, my dear co-inhabitants of our increasingly fragile house of our carelessness, our almost exhausted house of our selfishness; he is turning the “wake-up-call” page of transformation and renewal or of thoroughly stupid movement toward self-destruction?
Look at his eyes. He is asking us, no, he is pleading with us, not for his sake, but for our own, to really think deeply about WHY 9/11 HAPPENED? Why? Why? Why?
He is one year old today. Do we have some truly wise answer for him on his next birthday? Why did 9/11 happen? This is the question that Armin Pajooyan will haunt us with, every single 9/11, until…?
