collections 5:14 (in memory of my father)

The date is August 31st, 1999. I had just started eighth grade- and best of all, I got into the advanced math class. So when I returned to my home that afternoon, I waited for my dad to call so I can tell him about all the good news. Earlier that week, he left for Iran to see his family... to help them get into America, because Iran was no place to raise a family. He was a small, girthy Persian man- but he was good at what he did. He designed and engineered most of the roads in Aurora, Illinois... even though he came to this country with barley knowledge to speak English. He raised a family... marrying a woman who already had one son and then having two more. He found happiness in rural Illinois... we all did. Until August 31st, 1999... when I waited up until eleven for him to call. Only he didn't... his brother did. Although I didn't hear the conversation, because my mother took the phone out the back door with her that night, I knew what was going on... I could feel it with my sinking heart. As she stepped in through the back door and tears were filling her eyes, I knew... Amir Reza Riahi had died. They wouldn't send his body back to this country. Nor would they perform an autopsy... The truth is, he didn't have any real physical ailments. He was as healthy as a short, pudgy Persian man could be. But he died... and for years, I've been asking why. I ended up concluding that he was poisoned by nationalistic family, who saw how he was trying to free his family from the shackles of Iran. He wanted to give them freedom. It remind me of a lesson he taught me as a young boy, when I had to write an essay on freedom in middle school. I said I didn't want to do it and that freedom meant nothing to me, but I was a dumb kid. He grabbed me by the wrist that day and pulled me outside, locking me out of the house... for maybe half an hour. It felt like an eternity though. I sat there and cried... until he opened the door up again, and suddenly I understood what it meant to be free. The same way he let me in again was how he tried to help his family into this country, only to be betrayed and murdered for it. So when he died that night on August 31st, 1999 upholding his beliefs... I cried all night long. I dreamed that night of him, peering at me in his flannel shirt and carpenter jeans with his thick, window-esque glasses peering at me as clouds passed behind him. And then the next day, I forgot it ever happened. I had amnesia... but it wasn't long before I was reminded of the truth and had to deal with it. And so I cried, for months. A lot of things helped me out of it... my brothers especially, but before then... I picked which moments I wouldn't cry. Like at the memorial in Oswego, Illinois... I chose not to cry that day, even though my family was crying around me. I wanted to be strong for them. Later on, one evening, my brothers sat around the patio and reminisced about our favorite moments with dad. Like when you got home from work and you sat on his lap as he reclined in front of the TV... how his four o' clock shadow felt, because my four o' clock shadow feels the same now. Or how he smelled, because I smell the same now too. Or how he pretended he wasn't a smoker, even though he left ample evidence... I wish I could be as ashamed of my habit. Most of all, we remembered the best times we shared together. And then, as things began to get worse, I started to grow up and live in his example. He inspired me to be great... that anyone can be what they want to be when they believe and that I have a hell of a example to live up to. So I began writing, so that I may touch other lives the way he affected mine. Tonight, I dreamed that my father sent me into the world, as though he finally saw the man that I've grown up to be. I've been waiting for so many years, Dad.

I love you, Dad. And I'll never forget the sacrifices you made for me, or those that I'll make in order to make you proud.

In loving memory of Amir Reza Riahi.