What I usually do when someone I love leaves us is to write a letter to that person to say my last goodbye. Of course usually this is something I only do for myself and no one else sees it.
That is also what I wanted to do when I heard the sad news about Saba- Joon.
As Sepi and her family asked us to share memories about her, also for Nima and Parsa to have a lot of stories of her beloved grandmother I decided to write this letter in English and share it with this website.
“Please call me Nazi… you are the last person in the world who calls me with this name, my father’s family used to call me ” … that’s what you asked me several times when I got used to call you Saba.
So that’s what I will do in this letter.
You also asked me often to write and speak German to you, but as your near family would not be able to understand that I have to write in English.
Dear Nazi- Joon,
the first half of my live you just were a name to me, a really blurry memory, a pretty picture smiling at me at my grandmas home, someone I heard stories about and someone I knew my dad, my grandmother and her sister loved a lot.
Due to the circumstances back then we did not have the chance to have lot of contact and if you did, of course it was with the grownups.
But times changed, suddenly there was the possibility of email, calls around the world became cheaper and I was grown up myself so I could travel on my own whenever I wanted.
That was the time we started to have regular contact.
Unfortunately we only met 6 or 7 times, mainly in London at Shashas and Azis place. Once we had the chance to share some time together in Berlin, we met there as you did a speech at a conference.
I’m really grateful that we had the chance to get to know each other a little bit better.
There are people in your live you meet a hundred times, but they do not leave any marks in your live or your heart. There is family you respect and you are somehow forced to like them or at least act as if you do, because it’s family and that’s what everyone expects you to.
I met you the first time and there was a connection. Being with you was real fun, you and me were together most of the time when we visited London. We talked about a lot of things, about our lives, things we feel. You gave me advises to look at things from several angles… As I wrote you in our last email- chain in May, that was also what I thought about a lot of times while taking my last big decision.
Also doing the craziest thing in my live by traveling to Tehran after more than 30 years and getting married , you were there all the time as I lived at your place with Shahriar and Azi where your spirit, your live, your pictures were everywhere and we also talked a lot of times on the phone. You said you were sad, that you could not be there, but you were there all the time.
I now started reading your book. That’s a way to be close to you one last time.
What I personally never will forget is your nice and soft voice, your kind character, the way you giggled each time you and your brother were together and turned into children again, no matter what age you were.
So now it’s time for me to say my last good bye to you.
I’m not religious really, but I hope if there is another world the ones you loved and who already had left us before were waiting for you and you all have a ball seeing each other again.
Now we have another guardian angel in heaven.
I will never forget you Nazi- Joonam.
Zizi
