“My Mother Was Made of Love”
By ALIDAD AFSHAR

We actually didn’t have a traditional family life. My mother was very sick for most of my life and that combined with being a well known poet and lyricist, she was very busy. She was always in touch with a great number of artists, singers, musicians, arrangers and a lot of friends and fans. My brothers and I grew up like wild flowers because my parents were so occupied with battling my mother’s cancer and their careers. We had to take care of ourselves and find our ways in life, from school affairs and everything else that we needed in life. It felt like we were all on our own.

When she was not dealing with hospitals, recording studios, or meeting with friends; her warm embrace was the safest place in the world for me when I was a young boy. I loved and admired her greatly. I admired her character. When my friends were not around, I followed her everywhere. While among our American friends and their families, who were used to their “All American” ways of life in the small community of Petaluma, California, our parent’s style of life was more in vogue with Persian immigrants, aristocratic. That would embarrass me when I was young. Later in life, I learned that what used to embarrass me was actually a gift and I should have embraced being different as I do now.

I was much younger than my brothers Pasha and Johnny, and couldn’t have as much time to myself. Therefore I had more time with her. I would go to recording studios, sit in a corner on the floor, and spend my time day dreaming, playing or doing whatever I could to pass the time. At times I felt like I was wasting my time. I was also around when her friends would gather in our house or in parties she attended in their houses.

I loved cars as far back as I can remember, and especially remote control cars were my favorites as a child. When she had to go somewhere that I couldn’t accompany her, she would leave me with some friends in Petaluma. When we moved to Los Angeles she would leave me at the remote control race track in Northridge. I was about 14 when I wanted a dirt bike and she decided it wasn’t safe. So she took me to a toy store and asked me to choose something for myself. I chose this Clod Buster Tamiya RC car, a big four wheel drive remote control truck. She paid $500 for that truck back in the 80s. It was an expensive toy, but she never hesitated to spend money, and it’s a trait that I have inherited from her.

I will never forget the happiness I felt that day. I played with the truck for a while and competed with my friends, but I soon realized the large body of that truck caused me to lose a lot of competitions. She knew the reason for my annoyance was that other kids had smaller, faster cars and were winning all the races. So she went right ahead and bought me a smaller, faster car, again of my own choosing. That day I felt like I had hit the biggest jackpot in the world. I was beyond myself. My happiness had no boundaries. Later on, I was able to own many more toys and many real cars, but I still have saved those two cars like a precious memento of the precious days of my life.

Much later, I bought a 1980 Chevrolet 4×4 truck and was able to convert it into the exact replica of the remote control toy truck that my mother had bought me that day. I had to explain to others many times that I had actually converted the 1980 Chevrolet 4×4 truck to replicate my toy, and not the other way around. Because my friends had thought I had bought a toy truck to look like my real truck.

Later on, racing cars became the biggest part of my life. I became a professional race car driver for Subaru of America and set many world records. I love racing and started when I was young doing illegal street racing and unfortunately have been arrested five times, but then I went pro and all was good! I have won many races since 2001 and have won 18 championships and have the fastest Subaru in the world as well as my own “Ali Afshar Signature Series” Subaru vehicles sold directly thru Subaru dealers across the country.

In the years when I lived with the family, I was used to a house full of so much noise, many people who played music, recited poetry and argued about everything. They would get together, have dinner, light candles, and recite poetry. Many years passed till I realized what passionate moments they had in those friendly nights around each other. Hayedeh, Moein, Cheshmazar, Farid Zolond, Andranik, Mahasti, Mohammad Heydari, Andy and Kouros and many more.

I remember one night when they were all sitting around the dinner table, and Hayedeh started singing with her strong voice. I was not old enough to understand all that art, and was totally oblivious of all that talent and great voice. I could feel the walls of the house were trembling and felt like they may crumble down.

Our American friends would watch these gatherings with astonishment. My brothers and I didn’t realize at the time that these people were all the biggest stars of the Iranian music industry. Stars that were irreplaceable. I was very young when she passed away. My father handed me over to a couple who were his close friends promising to come back “in three months” from his trip to Iran. I had a remote control car in my right hand and a small suitcase in my left hand. Those three months became years. I was transferred from that friend’s house to another friend’s place and then again to another, until I joined my brothers.

Our Los Angeles house was gone. Our Aunt Molook who took care of my brothers after my mother’s death had gone back to Iran. We now we lived in a house that Pasha had rented with a group of his young friends. Pasha’s daughter, Lexy also lived with us. We had no money, not even enough to eat. Unfortunately, many times, we actually had to steal food. But truly, I still don’t know how we managed to survive.

My mother was made of love. One could hear her heart beating in her poems. Passion was prevalent in her life, and was the brightest and liveliest characteristic of her life. All her life, in health or illness, in happy times and in sad times, in fortitude and in restless times, love and passion were burning in her soul. Lila and love, meant one and the same.

Today I believe that spending my youth with her and her emotional spirit has had a strong effect on me. It helped me enter a life of art professionally and to have a much better understanding of myself and the world around me. I feel like many of her emotional attachments, her personal and behavioral characteristics, and also her way of life have had a great effect on my life and my outlook, and even the way I conduct my life. I believe my love of cinema, acting and producing movies is a direct aftermath of her strong traits that have nestled in me. When I produced a movie, and during all the interviews I had after its premier and in different Iranian and non-Iranian radio and TV programs, I always felt my mother’s presence. Especially when I produced a movie about a young Iranian and it was screened in America for the first time and it showed a good, positive character instead of a terrorist and corrupt person. I always felt her presence next to me after each one of these successes and I felt she was alive in my heart and in my soul.

I have a very bright and vivid memory of my mother. Pasha had gone to a studio in Hollywood to take a role in a movie. We were going there to pick him up. She entered the studio while I stayed in the yard where there was a basketball hoop and started playing. Then I noticed she came out of the building head ing to the car, in her elegant dress and high heels. She then suddenly began running towards me, took the ball out of my hands and ran to the basket. In one swoop, she dunked the basketball through the hoop. Then she walked to the car laughing and with a victorious look on her face. That is also an everlasting memory of my mother in my mind.

I have lived in America since I was very young. I believe this is a land of opportunity. One can try as hard as one can, and succeed. I feel happy about life in this country, while in the meantime, I believe we belong to a generation who became victims of the Iranian Revolution. We never had a normal life. We have set roots in this land, but we are not Americans. I never feel myself as an American, but I don’t feel at home in Iran either. I can speak Farsi just enough to get by, but cannot read or write whatsoever. However I can understand my mother’s poetry. It’s funny, I am both Iranian and American and at the same time I am neither. I am Iranian but I listen to American country music and rock and roll and I love it. It seems to me that my mother’s poetry is very similar to certain concepts of country music. You can hear cries of love and passion in those songs just like hers.