The sun was strong that day so I had worn sunglasses. At one point I remember opening my eyes and tear drop stains were everywhere on the inside of them. I gazed down through tear drop stains upon the grave, the flowers and earth underneath. I began to think about my father’s tombstone which we would eventually have to think about and lay one day.
The smallest things bring my father’s memory back. It is because of the largeness of the man himself, the beauty of his soul and gentle spirit. He was a unique person, a true one-in-a-million who left traces everywhere of his dignity and humanity. He loved his wife, children, relatives and friends unconditionally. He wasn’t political yet found a way based in kindness, strength and humor to pass on the best of what his homeland Afghanistan and his adopted home, the US, had to offer. He showed us what it meant to love with a full heart and to give with an open hand. My father taught me that the world is my friend.
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 75th birthday.
On May 29th 2009, I was standing in line on the tarmac to board a plane at Kabul International Airport. I was leaving Afghanistan that day after living there for two-and-a-half years. It was a warm, dry spring morning. I climbed the staircase of the Safi Airways flight and remember turning completely around at the top before climbing aboard. I took one last look across the majestic mountains ringing the Kabul Valley. They were a purplish brown and an early morning haze could be seen enveloping them. I could pick out dust-colored, jagged rocks on the mountain slopes. Tears began to gather in my eyes. This all-too-familiar sight of the stunning mountains and landscape of Afghanistan would soon be a memory. I was leaving the land where I had connected with my father’s country beyond what I had thought would be possible, connected with the Afghan half of my background in unforgettable ways.
When I left Kabul last May, everything about leaving was bittersweet. I had to say goodbye to many friends who had become like family. I also said goodbye to my brother whose contract had not ended yet and for the time being would remain. We had all shared the experience of living in Afghanistan together during challenging, tumultuous times. And the future for the unfortunate country was not bright. It was an uneasy, awkward goodbye in that my father was gone so the connection I had made with him in Kabul had passed with him. 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.
Kabul was after all my father’s hometown. 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. I had studied them. I had studied, compared and contrasted. Yet the connection would still remain a mystery.
It took us six months to finally think of the right kind of tombstone for my father. Perhaps it was the finality of what the tombstone signified that caused the delay. I think it was because we couldn’t quite find the words, which when sand-blasted onto black Indian granite, would forever describe him to family, friends and future visitors.
We laid his tombstone on December 21st 2009, the first day of winter, a coldish rainy Monday morning with the eucalyptus trees overhead swaying to and fro in the wind. It was a few days before Christmas which had been in the past a wonderful time of coming together, joyful and true. Warm memories of listening to Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole tunes while preparing the family feast together in the kitchen. While drinking good California wine, laughing at my father’s jokes, overlooking the passage of time.
Instead of being with him this year, we stood beside the place where he had been laid to rest, watched as his tombstone was set in concrete by the groundskeepers, cried a lot reflecting on him, the being without him, his legacy and on our collective loss.
These words are now written upon his grave beneath eucalyptus trees –
Mohammed Hasan Nusratty
Nov. 24, 1933 (Kabul, Afghanistan)
- Apr. 12, 2009 (Berkeley, California)
Beloved Husband
Father
Uncle, Brother
And Friend
How We Cherish and Honor
Your Beautiful Memory
And Gentle Soul
You Were
Architect, Builder
Restaurateur
Poet, Artist
And Renaissance Man
A True Lover of Life
A Beacon of Light
The Wonder of Our World
From Whom We Learned
Our Humanity –
Grace and Humor
Wisdom and Compassion
Strength, Patience
Kindness and Love
Your Beautiful Spirit
Will Be Missed
Always And
Forever
rohash shad bad (in Farsi script)
("May his soul be happy")
