In Memoriam

The previous Friday, on the seventh anniversary since her death, the family gathered over her grave to offer their prayers.
Seven years ago Maman-jun came to London to look after the children so that I could go to Athens for an operation. She arrived on 28 September 2002 and I left for Athens on the following day. Five weeks later, on a Tuesday morning I got home, and on the following day Ramadan would start. On that evening, the Iranian satellite channel showed the pilgrims who went to Mecca for the Ramadan. Maman-jun had had the good fortune to be in Mecca during the previous Ramadan.
“Last year I was in Mecca,” she mused, looking at the TV images, “this year I am in London… who knows where I will be next year.”
“God Willing, you’ll be in Mashhad next year, “ I replied. (Mashhad, a city in north-west Iran is the burial place of Imam Reza, the eighth Imam, and a favourite pilgrimage site for Iranians.)
On Thursday morning she had a massive stroke, and in the early hours of Sunday 7 November 2002, she passed away at West Middlesex Hospital, Isleworth. Two days later Hossein escorted her body to Tehran for burial. She is now buried at the Behesht-e Zahra Cemetery, south of Tehran, in a two-storey grave which she now shares with Aqa-jun, her husband of more than fifty years, who passed away four and a half years after her. God rest their souls.