Personal Memoir: A Short Story

Personal Memoir:

I barely got to experience the joy of growing up with my Grandfather by my side. I was only 13 when he got taken away from us on a gloomy Wednesday afternoon. We'd all been anxiously waiting for Baba to come home for dinner after spending the morning and afternoon hours protesting against the Shah. You see, our family was never really like the average Iranian family. My sisters and me did not like to wear our veils, and we all absolutely loved pop music- especially Michael Jackson. Both my parents and grandparents enjoyed a glass or two of wine every once in a while and we did not agree with the extreme beliefs of the Shah. The peace and innocence within our cozy walls were starkly juxtaposed with the horrid calamity ongoing

After a few weeks I met this girl, of similar age to mine whom had also been witness to the horrendous reality of the Shah’s regime and the Islamic Revolution. She had just like myself had a family member lost during this time; her Father was shot dead in a political battle shortly after my Baba had been taken in. She had since suffered a lot of discrimination due to her being of Islamic decent and struggled to find a place to live. I offered her to share the rent in my apartment and she moved in the following day. We became good friends and we had a lot to relate to between each other. As a victim of the Shah’s regime I knew how difficult life had been, and still was. She was haunted just like myself and although we quickly became close with each other, she moved back to Iran to her Mother and younger brother after roughly a year in London. So here I am, 43 years old, approximately 30 years after this terrible event, alone and scarred by the events of the Islamic Revolution. My innocence as a young girl in Iran had slowly been torn away from me as I was forced to mature much faster than any normal girl and my past experiences have haunted me for as long as I can