My Life in Short Stories: 4. The End of My Fairy Tale

The late 70s was a period of turmoil and political unrest in Iran and for me, a time of personal and emotional challenges. In the early 70s I was happily married, had two wonderful children, and had a full-time teaching job at a university. Unfortunately my fairy tale marriage came to an end after eleven years when I learned of my husband’s extramarital affairs. After that I could not establish or maintain any successful relationships and when I look back now I would like to think that everything happened for a reason and the reason had to do with the future of our children.

After 1975 I got heavily involved in reading and listening to political conversations that were going on around me. There were talks of revolution and in the university where I was teaching the faculty members were engaged in heated discussions and we soon came to learn about everybody’s political orientation. My so-called leftist colleagues were clearly pro revolution because they were sure that the fruits of the movement will fall into their hands and of course they were wrong.  The rest of us were fearful of the unknown and the women in particular did not want to lose their freedom or to be forced to cover themselves from head to toe in the name of religion.

I did not come from a religious family and even though I had seen my grandmother and my aunt pray, I was never forced to practice any religion. But I believed in God and I respected people with all religious convictions and backgrounds. As a young girl I read in a book of spirituality that I can pray or ask for help from Saints of all religions and I liked that idea. I remember being a member of the Christmas Choir when I was a student at the American University of Beirut and I enjoyed singing for patients in the hospitals during the Christmas Holidays.

My paternal grandparents were journalists and my grandmother wrote about women’s right to education, changing marriage laws and veiling. She was among the first women who took off her veil when the women were given the freedom to do so during the Shah’s father’s reign. She published her magazine in the 1920’s and was violently opposed by religious groups. She finally was forced into exile and had to run for her life.

My grandmother Fakhrafagh Parsay

My grandfather Farrokhdin  Parsay

My aunt who was my role model and had helped me change my life as a teenager, was the fourth child in her family and was born when my grandmother was in exile. She was a medical doctor and an educator by profession. She wrote in her diaries “Most Iranians in the age group of 20-50 know me well because I have been a teacher, a school principal, and the vice minister of education for several years. I was the first woman to become a member of parliament and the first woman to become the Minister of Education”.

My Aunt Dr. Farrokhrou Parsay
The Minister of Education

In January 1979 which was the peak of political unrest in Iran the Shah and the Queen left the country and their leaving was followed by the return of Khomeini from exile and the formation of an Islamic government. Almost everybody’s name was in the government’s black list and many were trying to escape the country in one way or another. A lot of people including a few of my own relatives were arrested and then released after a few months.

It was a hot spring day in Tehran in the post revolution year of 1980. I was in the car with my children and when I turned on the radio to listen to the two o’clock news, to my horror, I heard that the Government has executed my aunt who was in prison for no reason other than being the Shah’s Minister of Education. She had already retired from her position seven years prior.

They did this on Women’s Day to teach all women a lesson. I was devastated and I could not stop crying while I was aimlessly driving around town in absolute disbelief and sorrow. My aunt whom I adored and was like a mother to me, was gone now and there was nothing I or anyone else could do.

My Aunt and My Mother in Their Young Age

It is documented that in that period of time more than 120,000 people including the Prime Minister, Cabinet Ministers and others were executed by firing squads without trial and due process and in violation of Human Rights standards.

A short time after the execution of my aunt by the Islamic government, my grandmother, who could not deal with her sorrow any more, died and soon after, I lost my mother to cancer while she was being treated for it in France.

On those days I could only think of one thing and had only one goal in mind and that was to leave the country, to find a job and to save my children.



To be continued…..