Eulogy
My mother was always in motion, her favorite word was “berim”=let’s go”! I used to call her “perpetual motion machine”. When I was growing up, it was not unusual to wake up and see that she had already walked 3 miles to buy Halim for breakfast! Neither was it unusual to come home and see the house totally re-decorated from top to bottom! At nursing home in the last year of her life, their only complaint was that it is hard to keep her in one area: she was all over the place, even we she had to propel herself in a wheel chair. I always had to look for her. On the last day of her life, she asked me to take her out of bed and the room and to the patio. She was already very weak and could hardly open her eyes, but was restless. When she felt the breeze, she calmed down, smiled and fell sleep. This was perhaps her last conscious moment. Today finally she is at rest, at least her body is. Her soul, I am sure, is already moving about, going places, seeing things, doing things.
My mother loved flowers, birds, and children. She grow flowers most of her life, my father used to call our house “green house” because she would fill all the rooms with pots of greens. She used to have parakeets and canaries until she had to give them up in the fear of passing some unknown germ to my sister. She had a soft spot for all children; hers and others. If she saw an unattended child in the street, she would invariably stop and look for the mother. Once she stopped a total stranger’s hand in the air as the other woman was beating her child in a supermarket in Tehran. She made little doll dresses for all kids in the family, and it was not unusual to wake up after Norouz holiday and find out your school assignment, neglected for 2 weeks, has already been miraculously done in her meticulous handwriting!
She had a “gifted hand”, a magical way with beading, embroidery, painting, knitting. She never did a formal pattern, the pattern was in her head. She just sewed and changed, and it would come out astonishing. We were always begging her to add something to our shirts. She couldn’t stand blank clothing, she would sew a flower, knit a bird, or add some other beautiful pattern, even to underwear! Weeks after she almost died in a car accident, she created a masterpiece on my wedding dress: transforming a simple dress to one worthy of a princess. The dress, Halas, is lost, but pictures remain. When she had her fashion business in Tehran, she would adapt the latest Paris fashions for Iranian woman. Her creations were nothing short of amazing. When she gave up the business to comply with my father’s wishes, I remember women literally begging her to reconsider: “But Mahin you make us look so good!”, was the usual refrain. I know it was painful for her not to be able to manipulate the spoon to feed herself at the end. She never stopped trying though.
She loved music, she taught herself to play organ, and would play our piano. Even when she could not remember who my husband of 25 years with whom she had lived for 15, was she still remembered some of the old Persian songs and played them until her fingers stopped responding to the music in her head. In the house, she loved to sit on the stairs and listen to me or kids play, She would clapp at the end of each piece from upstairs!
She loved people, she was always making friends, giving parties, giving gifts even when she could hardly afford it. She never waited for people to ask her for her help or something, she would offer it, generously.
My mother was not much for sleep, a few hours here and there would do. She always said “you know we will be sleeping for a very long time”, Rest in peace mom!