It was the three-month anniversary of my father’s death… I am with my mom at the gravesite. In the silence of prayer beside his grave, I can remember that our hands were clasped and I could see the shadow of our hands joined together over the bouquets of flowers that had been left for my father by visitors the past few days. I am crying and the tears flow easily down my face. The sun was strong that day so I had worn sunglasses. At one point I remember opening my eyes and tear drop stains are everywhere on the inside of them. I gaze down through the tear drop stains upon the grave, the flowers and earth underneath. I begin to think about the tombstone that we will eventually have to lay…

 

Mohammed Hasan Nusratty left this earth one year ago, Easter Sunday, April 12th 2009, at the age of 75.

 

I was in a supermarket in San Francisco recently and the cover story on a Life magazine resonated for me. The magazine title was “The King at 75” with one of the famous photos of Elvis Presley looking on. The number “75” had caught my attention. It was an entire tribute to Elvis on what would have been his 75^th birthday.

 

It is May 29^th 2009. I am standing in line on the tarmac to board the plane at Kabul International Airport. I am leaving Afghanistan today after two-and-a-half years. It is a warm, dry spring morning. I climb the staircase of the Safi Airways flight and remember turning completely around at the top before climbing aboard. I take one last look across the majestic mountains ringing the Kabul Valley. They are a purplish brown and an early morning haze can be seen enveloping them. I can pick out dust-colored, jagged rocks. Tears begin to gather in my eyes. This familiar sight of the stunning mountains and landscape of Afghanistan will soon be a memory. I am leaving the land where I have connected with my father beyond my wildest dreams, connected with my Afghan background in unforgettable ways...

 

What thoughts do I have one year later? The word story teller initially comes to mind. My father was one of the great story tellers in the best sense, not only in the jokes he told which he did effortlessly and entertainingly. In his restaurants in Oakland and in Walnut Creek, and the import shops he owned and operated, he would make everyone from visiting friends to new customers feel welcome and laugh.

 

For those who knew him well or even those who met him on a few occasions, you would be struck by his appreciation of the angles of life that make life real yet mysterious. He was the master of these angles. It would all come out as he made a witty, funny comment or told a joke. My father was in touch on a deep level with the mystery of life. He gave each of us comfort and the courage to love through the biggest challenges in life. Through his sense of humor, inner spirit and confidence, in such situations you would soon be thinking that everything was going to be all right.

 

He was a wonderful father, friend and human being. On this day his family and friends scattered around the world, those who knew him well and loved him, hang our heads down low and choke back tears of disbelief, reflecting on the life of a unique and gifted man. He was amazing, a true one-in-a-million who left us with traces everywhere of the greatness of his humanity.

 

What was he like? He was uncommonly patient, kind, generous, humane, humorous, a great joke-teller, one who teased and found easy nicknames for his family and friends, a wonderful interpreter of song and moving singer, a poet at heart, an architect, builder, creative chef, entrepreneur, landscape gardener, caregiver to animals, a lover of life, and one who loved his wife, children and relatives – nieces, nephews, cousins and friends around the world unconditionally. He showed us what it meant to love fully. My father taught me that the world is my friend.

 

When I left Kabul last May, everything about leaving was bittersweet. I had to say goodbye to many good friends who had become family. We had shared the experience of living in Afghanistan during challenging, tumultuous times. My father was gone, so the connection I had made with him in Kabul had somehow died. It felt like the right time to go, but this was where I had made such an incredible connection to him and the Afghan people.

 

This was my father’s hometown and in the face of every Afghan man and woman, I could see glimpses of him. Somewhere in their smile, somewhere in their manner, my father was there.

 

It took us six months to finally think of his tombstone… Perhaps it was the finality of what the tombstone signified. I think it was because we couldn’t quite find the words, which when sand-blasted onto black granite, would forever describe him to family, friends and future visitors.

 

His tombstone was laid last December 21^st 2009, the first day of winter, a rainy cold Monday morning with the eucalyptus trees overhead swaying to and fro in the wind. It was a few days before Christmas which would have been in the past a wonderful time of coming together, joyful and true.

 

Instead of being with him, we stood beside the place where he had been laid to rest, watched as his tombstone was set in concrete, cried a lot, and reflected on him, his legacy and on our collective loss.

 

These words now mark the grave beneath eucalyptus trees –