Ayatollah Khamenei Visits
The family of martyr Zhani Bet Oshana
Visit Date: 1/1/1987
The Photo of
Martyr Zhani Bet Oshana
Martyred in Hur-al-Hovaiza, Khuzistan
Martyred on 14/3/1985
My mother, without noticing that I am already awake, talks on the phone in a low voice. I listen carefully to know what’s going on. The very intimate way she speaks shows that she is talking to my maternal aunt Souri. She says that last night she had a dream: Zhani; was back!
Zhani was my elder brother. We were four brothers: I am Nilshon and I was born after him and Jonson is my older brother and Charlie was older than Zhani; I am the youngest. Now Zhani is missing and so we are three brothers.
Mother does not usually tell others about her dreams but aunt Souri is an exception, especially after she lost her husband in a car accident. So mother telephones her every day and talks to her very sympathetically. And when mother has nothing more to say, she talks about her dreams!
Two years ago Zhani, whose military service would have finished in about two months, was martyred at a place called Hur-al-Hovaiza Lagoon at Iran-Iraq border but his body was not found.
Since then my mother is waiting for some news and is often gazing at the entrance-door of our house. During this long year, she has often dreamt of Zhani but never before a dream about his coming back. So now hope has returned to her heart that there will be some news for sure.
I am now very restless. I walk here and there continuously. My mother, who doesn’t know that I know about her dream, is surprised at my behavior; so are my brothers and my father. Today is Friday and everybody is at home. It’s about 11a.m. when the door-bell rings. I go to open the door, it’s aunt Souri. A few others ring but none of them has anything to do with Zhani. At about 12:30 the house-bell rings, Jonson goes towards the door and, from behind the window, a person whose face cannot be seen talks to my brother. Then Jonson closes the door, he has an envelope in his hand: one of Zhani’s comrades at the war-front has brought this letter. A day before his martyrdom, Zhani gave this letter to him to bring to us. He had told him: this is my will, take it to my family. But this friend was himself wounded and couldn’t do it for almost a year. Today he has brought it: now the atmosphere in our family is perfumed with the scent of Zhani, as if he had really returned.
We all gather in a room, the father, the mother, the brother and auntie Souri.
Auntie Souri says: All of you are not in a natural mood, so give me the letter and I’ll read it to you.
Then she clears her throat and reads:
In the Name of God, my dearest family, salaam, when you have these papers in your hands, I hope you’ll all be well and spent a pleasant life that I always had in mind for you and to be blessed by the bounties of God, Jesus Christ and his Holiness Mary. I’m writing these lines a few moments before we start an operation to take back our rights from an aggressor to our country. If my hand-writing is not very legible, well, you must know that I am writing it in a small trench, with a comrade, not to be hurt by the Iraqi airplanes that are bombing us. I meant to write a few lines to you all as I didn’t want to go out of this world without telling you what’s in my heart.
At this point my mother weeps and cries loudly and my aunt stops reading for a while for mother to become calm. And I close my eyes and try to imagine Zhani with his friend in a small trench while Iraqi airplanes fly over their heads.
Aunt Souri read on:
My dearest father…
(I look at father, his eyes are full of tears)
my dearest father, you always tried hard to provide us everything in a good, clean life. I thank you for all your efforts and hardships you faced and if sometimes I made certain requests not in your power, I do apologize; this was because of my childlike behaviour and I never intended to bother you at all. I wish you more success in your profession which is devoted to the betterments of the family’s life and the happiness of us all.
Here father picks up a framed photo of himself together with Zhani and Jonson and studies it with tearful eyes for a few moments.
Our aunt goes on reading the letter:
My dearest mother, I don’t know what to write to you about your motherly care and your efforts. I always wanted to properly show my gratitude to you and father; when I meant to help you, this damned war was imposed on us and now at this war-front I really miss you very much.
My mother’s weeping does not stop and my aunt, after reading the sentence: “I really miss you very much”, has a lump in her throat and cannot continue. She is silent for a while, then she wipes her eyes with her sleeve and tries to read on:
Dear mum, I truly miss you at this moment; I’m sitting on a pile of earth now and remember the times you did not go to sleep and came to me to comfort me. I wish you were here now and I could hold your warm, motherly hands and kiss them over and over again. Anyway, I ask you to be still kinder towards my father and never let him feel lonely. You two, in old age, need each other more than ever.
Aunt Souri stops reading and looks at Charlie; he has his head down with tears in his eyes. It is evident that he’s really missing his younger brother a lot.
Aunt Souri now reads:
My dear brother Charlie, oh, brother, how I wish to sit next to you and celebrate the end of my military service. Any way, you must be happy because your happiness makes me happy too. I ask you to always talk to all members of the family and entertain them. I ask you to get up at this very moment and kiss our mother’s face. Thus, while I write this, I could imagine you in mother’s embrace. This is the only request of your younger brother.
Charlie who’s sitting near mother kisses her hands and mother embraces him and kisses his cheeks.
The letter goes on:
My good brother Jonson. All I want to ask you is to listen to our parents’ advice more often. Always consult with elders in everything that you do and be sure that there’s nobody better than mother, father and brothers who want the best for you. When you begin something, please try to finish it with success. Be sure that walking about in the streets will get you nowhere!
I am thinking if Zhani, at the war-front, if he also remembers me when aunt Souri looks at me and reads: “My younger, dear handsome brother, Nilson”, when I think of you, I’d like to jump and run and scream, oh, my noisy, jumpy.
active brother. Please continue your studies, don’t let our parents constantly admonish you about this! You’re now a grown-up person. Don’t you ever be a source of worries and troubles for your mother, father or brothers and please wherever you go, tell our parents about it.
Hearing this, I promise him in my heart that I will follow his advice. The letter is nearing its end:
My dear, kind brother, do you want to know what I’m thinking right now? Well, I wish very much to be present at your weddings specially Charlie’s wedding. Well, if this is not realized, please remember me at your weddings and be sure that I am remembering you also. And oh, my dear aunt Souriana;
when our aunt reads her own name, she put the letter on her heart and said:
May auntie be sacrificed for you! Then she went on reading: I know you lost your husband this year, but do not despair, that’s life, you must try to be optimistic. I ask my own family to support aunt Souri in every way and help her in all her affairs. And now I must write down a few lines about the rest of my family: paternal and maternal uncles, their wives and their children: I do remember them and I apologize to them if I ever did anything wrong. I remember my other aunt and of course I pray to God for the health of my grand-father and grand-mother. Please give my regards to all my friends specially Eprim and Joseph and their families.
I follow the lines of the letter as my aunt reads them; now there are only two lines left which says:
I am absolutely sure that, if I am martyred, my soul will live happily in bliss and your prayers for me will help further. I only beg you all not to weep and wail too much because I am not worthy of your affections.
Your devoted son 13/3/1985
After this letter was read, I felt that I loved my brother Zhani a hundred times more than before. I get up, take his framed photo in my hands, kiss it all over and whisper to him: I love you, Zhani brother.
The Visit
It is winter and a very cold winter and so sleeping on the side of a warm large stool under which a stove is laid (Persian “Korsi”) is really enjoyable. Charlie is also lying down on the other side of the Korsi but then someone is knocking at our house entrance-door and Charlie says: Nilson, go and open the door!
I open my eyes and get up. It’s about 9:30 a.m. but mother is not at home; she has probably gone out to buy bread for breakfast. I open the house-door and a well-built young man says: Salaam and I yawm and answer him.
He says: excuse me, boy; I seem to have woken you up, and asks: is this the house of martyr Zhani Bet Oshana?
I say: Yes. And suddenly I think maybe he has some news about zhani and this wakes me up completely and I say excitedly: Yes, yes, it is, I’m his brother, have you found him?
No, unfortunately, but we would like to meet you this evening for an interview; are your parents at home?
I am disappointed and say: Father is on a Journey but my mother and elder brother will be here.
Okay, then we will come to see you this evening for half an hour, and then he says goodbye.
It’s evening now and there is a knock at the door. Mother looks around to make sure everything is in place and then she says to me: Dear Nilson, go and open the door.
There is a young man together with a few others carrying flowers and boxes of cakes. They come in and say ‘hello’ to mother and Charlie, and apologize for taking our time at Christmas Eve. My mother warmly welcomes them as she always does with guests and thanks them for visiting us.
The guests sit down and mother brings tea after a few minutes and then one of the guests says: excuse us for being silent, that’s because we are not your principal guest. Mother says: that’s alright, we wait and we’ll welcome anyone who comes.
A few moments later the door-bell rings and I get up to go and open the door but one of the guests says: My friend will open the door. I sit down and he informs me then that the principal guest is Mr. Khamenei, the President!
Hearing this, mother gets up hastily and goes towards the door and we follow her. Mother says welcome to Mr. Khamenei and kisses his hand which is under his cloak.
Charlie and I also say salaam in the corridor. Then we all sit on the chair around the table. Mr. Khamenei says a few friendly words to us and then asks my mother why she kissed his hand?
Mother replies: Sir, we Assyrians always kiss the hands of our priests and for me you are also a priest, that’s why I asked you to allow me to kiss your hand.
Mr. Khamenei looks at the photos on the shelf and asks: Is that one a photo of your martyr?
I get up and bring the framed photo and hand it to him and he looks deeply at it for long moment while mother tells him about Zhani: when I say that Zhani was the best person in our family, everybody says that my statement is because of motherly love for him, but no, it’s not so, truly he was unique in our family in every respect, his faith, his moral character, his studying, he was kind and he was loved by all, he went to church every week and was keen on his prayers.
I feel that my father and Jonson have really missed this meeting. Father is a truck-driver and last night he drove to kerman to deliver something; he will, at the earliest, be here the day after tomorrow, and Jonson travelled to Germany two months ago to continue his studies.
Mr. Khamenei, after consoling mother with some sweet, warm words and explaining the high status of martyrs in the sight of God, speaks with me and Charlie and whether we are studying or working and my mother is really delighted to meet the President in our house.
Charlie goes and brings tea; there are two platefuls of sweets and cakes which mother has baked herself and mother offers them to Mr. Khamenei and he first gives some pieces to us and then picks one for himself.
What has aroused my curiosity all this time is the very young boy, about 10, who is sitting next to me and on the opposite side of the President; he has very short hair like a school-boy and is very ordinarily dressed. And after I find out that he is Mr. Khamenei’s son, I think if I were to see him in the street I would’ve never believed he could be the President’s son. This sort of clothes were not usual for the sons of ministers or lesser officials! I wish I could take his hand, go to the street and play with neighbouring playmates and say: Look, this is the President’s son, they came to our house and that the President himself is now meeting us in our small house.
Well, I am drowned in these thoughts when I notice that our guests are about to leave. I’m really sad that this visit is coming to an end.
Mr. Khamenei, before his departure, asks us if we lack anything in our daily life.
Both mother and Charlie say: Everything is okay, we only pray to God for your health. And, despite this, Mr. Khamenei, gives mother the telephone number of his Office and adds: If ever, there was anything you wanted, please ring this number. And then he gives mother a gift.
Mother thanks him a lot and says: God protect you, I was delighted to have met you, we were honored. And Mr. Khamenei says: I haven’t done anything extraordinary; it was only my obvious duty.
And then, without attracting much attention, he gets into a car and leaves us.
A few minutes after the president’s departure, all our neighbours rush into our house. I don’t know how they’ve all found out that the President had come to our house. They ask various questions such as: which chair did he sit on? What did he say to you? What did we ask him for? And the like.
I meant to narrate everything the following morning in my school. But they all come to our house in the evening with their questions and say: Lucky you, Nilson, we wish we were in your place. I don’t tell them about the president’s son and save it for tomorrow at the school.