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Mahsa Sheikh, Low Entropy Volunteer Writer

Please note that this piece contains general reference to a trial involving sexual violence.

The love we receive from the ones who nurtured and supported us in childhood is the most unforgettable of all loves. We cannot simply let go of the memories we had with people who took the time to resolve our emotional distress, guided us to look at things through a different lens, and showed us the light at the end of the tunnel that is time; people who despite a dearth of means or opportunities, worked day and night to provide for us, and give us the chances we would have never had, had it not been for their initiative and dedication; people whose light and love warmed us and gave us power to face seemingly insurmountable obstacles as we grew up.

I can not speak for others, nor even try to, but fathers are often immediately associated with those aforementioned qualities among their children. This does not mean that we live in a world where patriarchy is a thing of the past. As I write this, I am thinking of Mazan mass rape trial in France. During the trial, Gisèle Pelicot defied patriarchy and was catapulted to the status of a feminist hero after her decision to hold the trial in public to catalyze debate about rape culture. While spaces to talk about issues regarding sexual violence or toxic masculinity are felt and much-needed, it is also vital to find ways to revere figures under whose auspices our intellect, sensibilities and desire for success were conceived.

When I was nine, my father had a horrid stroke that left him paralyzed. The news of his stroke was broken to us over the phone while we were still vacationing at my aunt’s house in the north. The next morning my mother rushed us back to Tehran on the earliest inter-urban bus available in town. When we arrived, a rather disorderly and chaotic household was waiting for us: loads of dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, and the garden flowers were lying in oblivion and looked wilted, parched or half-alive. I spent the following few days taking care of the meals and the dishes while eyeing the cherry red door at the end of our yard where the branches of an old willow tree danced under the afternoon summer breeze. I was waiting for the second my father would appear in the doorway, wishing he would bring things back to the old order. None of us could tell what was in store for us. Feelings of uncertainty and unease were both overwhelming and deeply unsettling.

The day my father was discharged from the hospital, either a Tuesday or a Wednesday, two of my uncles helped him out of the cherry red Paykan and laid him on a bed prepared for him near the hallway, so he would be able to walk to the toilets located at the far corner of the yard. Our residential property was old and obviously not built with accessibility in mind. It was unbelievably sad to see him walk with great difficulty just to take bathroom breaks. The hardest part was probably processing the heavy thought that my father, a gentle, learned and loving man with a doctorate in pharmacology and so many years of service at the Ministry of Health and Medical Education, had become frail and fragile and in need of assistance and care around the clock. 

The stroke robbed my father of the ability to help my mother with parenting duties, a fact that he admitted and regretted throughout the remainder of his life. Quite sadly, the thought made him feel all the more bitter. It seemed to me that the idea of fatherhood without the ability to father his children was severely traumatizing and hard to swallow. I wish I had the emotional capacity to help him feel and think in a more positive light.

My father was the only person in my life who instilled the love of reading in me and made me understand how deeply I loved the written word. I discovered Maxim Gorky’s My Universities for the very first time in his expansive library, and was left in awe of Freud’s treatise on dreams one afternoon when I had skipped doing my homework to read for pleasure instead. I still treasure his advice on keeping silent about daily world affairs, waiting for events to come out of the news cycle and avoiding rampant populist rhetoric. My father was also a central figure in making me realize how important it is to be a people person, listen closely and learn to appreciate the complexity of human interactions. 

People we come to love in life will forever live in our hearts and minds. Our memories of them, distant or close, fill us as we go through the day, as we breathe the air they once breathed, or as we walk in the path they might or might not have walked in, but wished to. I wish I had been able to thank my father again and again for his emphasis on growing a strong character and striving to live a self-sufficient life in harmony and peace with others. I really wanted my father to know that his love, as irreplaceable as it is and will be, gave me so much. 

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