
Sharaum Yousefian, 40, driving instructor, Tehran, Iran.
“I tasted being well-off before the [1979] revolution.
“My father, a lawyer by training, was a colonel in the military and made good money. My mother opened a hair salon and made several times what my father did because she went for training to France and Italy. There was always a Mercedes and a BMW in front of the house.
“Then my father and mother divorced and things fell apart. All my siblings [who were younger than me] moved away with my father. My mother rolled over her car and became paralyzed from chest down; I was the only one who remained with her during the two years before her death.
“All we had was spent on her medical bills. Then the government would not let me stay with her. They said when she had her accident I was already 18, so they sent me to fight [in the Iran-Iraq War].
“You don’t know the hell I went through during that period. I was injured three times. I saw a friend eating next to me get shot in the head. When he fell, there was food pouring out of his mouth.
“Once we took my mother home, I was expecting her to be dead every single day that I came home. She had a button next to her bed with which she could open the door. I had my own keys, but I rang and waited for her to open the door because I couldn’t stand the idea of finding her dead.
“I would sweat profusely and feel so cold when I rang the door and waited. Then she’d open the door and all the tension would seep away.
“When she was gone, they told me she had to be buried quickly. I was 19 and the only family member at her burial. Everyone else was out of town and on their way to Tehran.
"The women at the cemetery washed her, wrapped her in white cloth, and asked for a family member to hold her head to place her into the grave. I was the only mahram person around so I had to do it. I literally held my mother's head and helped place her in the ground. And it was first time I had ever seen an open grave.
"I didn’t want to bury her. For a long time people were criticizing me for not getting her a head stone; that would have made it feel too final. I kept wishing I could keep her at home.
“I couldn’t cry. The only thing that came up was something like hick-ups. Then came the ceremony for her third [day after death] at the mosque. When I heard the mullah announce her name, suddenly I broke like a dam. But I also started bleeding through the nose. They took me to two doctors before they managed to stop the bleeding. I was crying the whole time. The doctors said it was from the pent-up stress. They said what saved my life was being able to finally cry.
“I already had decided to kill myself. On her seventh, after all the ceremonies were over, I took a pack of shaving blades and went to her grave around midnight. I kissed her grave and told her I was about to join her.
“Just as I was about to cut my wrist, I felt someone grabbing my shoulders. It was my friend, Bahraum. 'You can do as you wish. I won’t stop you,' he said. 'Just give me five minutes to talk to you.'
“He asked what was the sin of my siblings to also lose a brother. Then he gave me a letter from a woman I had loved but her family would not let her marry me. She had mailed the letter to him to be sure that I got it.
“I went to live with my father in Isfahan but soon it became clear I wasn’t welcome. I’d go to take a shower and his [new] wife would turn off the hot water and announce, ‘it’s broken’.”
“When I left my dad’s, a beat-up car was all I had in the entire world and I lived in it for a year.
“Then I went to Kermanshah—I told you I have a Kurdish strain in me. The Kurds revere the dead. If the dead person was young and had a child, they really love that child.
“It was there that I met my wife. She was my mother’s cousin. I was only 23 and way too young to get married. But I saw this young, innocent thing and I knew I wanted her as my companion.
“We’ve gone through a lot since then; very difficult times. But we survived.
“I truly love my wife. In the mornings she wakes up my son at 6 and get him out the door by 6:20. Then she wakes me up and brings breakfast to bed. I don’t know where I’d be without her.
“She makes between 400,000 to—on a very good month—600,000 tomans [$434 to $652 USD] a month at the beauty salon she works at. With my 200,000 [$217 USD] a month it’s enough for us to make ends meet.
“We even have a little saved into which we dip every time there’s a guest.
“It should be hard for me to be living in someone else’s property and pay rent—after all the wealth I tasted when I was a kid.
“But then I’ve already tasted having a lot of things. I can live with not having that anymore.
“I can never forget my mother. I still talk to her when I feel lonely.
“A few years ago I was in a driving accident and the right side of my body was paralyzed. I was bedridden.
“Then one night she came to my dream. She put my head on her knees, carassed my neck and shoulders, and her hands through my hair. ‘Why is my son in pain?’ she asked. 'You can walk, I know you can walk. Come on, just try to walk.'
“When I woke up, I tried moving. Then I sat up and finally I started walking. I screamed for my wife, “I can walk! I can walk!”