The description, in my view, is a bright and expressive image of a woman whose very life meant nothing but love, sacrifice and compassion. You would think she was a spirit from above.

When she left us, I was about twenty three years old and I well understood the death’s inevitability in life, notwithstanding I believed she was going to live forever. I simply believed her love and her support would be with us as long as we live.

All I remember of my mother is her love for anything and everything good, gentle and noble in life, however I didn’t fully understand the meaning of these words. 

Today when I recall my childhood, I see my mother woven into all that is beautiful. She didn’t know evil, and she couldn’t tolerate people’s pain, suffering and deprivation. 

I remember her riding in my father’s Pontiac, full of clothes and food to donate to the poor neighborhoods of Tehran. I was just six or seven years old. I would sit next to her and watch the people who would run after our car to receive the donations. One of those days, I recall a five or six year old girl with dirty blonde hair and green eyes who caught my attention. It was probably the first time I had been mesmerized by a girl’s stare. We were staring at each other; maybe for just a few seconds which felt like a lifetime. She then ran to get food from my mother. 

This green magical gaze had a lasting impression in my mind, and every time I see someone with green eyes, I remember her. I have thought of that day many times. Back then I couldn’t fully grasp the highs and lows of life and recognize the fact that life is full of injustices. 

Years passed and I reached a period in my life when providing the minimum for survival was a great wish demanding a greater will. How interesting that life took such a turn when we went from the days of riding along in the car with my parents handing out food and goods to the needy to struggling for food and necessities for ourselves. Life plays such strange game.

My mom was educated in London, England and knew that city very well. After graduating, she returned to Iran and got a job at the Petrochemical Company of Iran. Soon after she married my father, a high ranking officer of the National Bank of Iran, whom she loved passionately. They were made of totally different and even contrasting materials. Dad was the firstborn son in a traditional family belonging to the Afshar tribe. 

He was brought up in a noble feudal system and his word was an order to be carried out with no ifs, ands or buts. If he was day, my mother was night. She was gentle and caring; she was vulnerable and knew what pain meant. She was compassionate and had a deep understanding of love. My mother’s art was not just poetry, it was lyrics of love, compassion, and as spiritual as one could be.

My dad’s love for sport hunting came to a pinnacle point on this one trip alongside my mother.  He randomly saw a deer and capitalized on a quick chance for the hunt. My mother’s love for all things and life itself was not one who could witness or allow a killing. So all the begging and pleading did not suffice and she threatened that she would leave my father if he killed the deer. The trigger was pulled, the deer was killed, and she was gone. But the separation didn’t last long. Dad was remorseful and tried hard to repair the damage. I am their first child and I have two brothers, Jahanshah and Alidad.

I remember well when she found out about her illness. I was eleven, and I was standing next to her when she was putting on a dress and felt this gland in her breast and touched it. This image is left in my mind vividly. I didn’t understand what a gland was and never had heard of cancer. Much later, I realized what she had gone through that day. She was thirty nine and Alidad had just been born. I will never forget the sudden pain and the fear emanating from her face in that moment. 

My youth passed with her illness. Her dealing with the illness was followed with my dad’s misfortune with the consequences of the Iranian Revolution. Many of his colleagues and friends were arrested with different accusations, and had to go through unknown fates. He was able to acquire entry visas for us into England; the country where my mother believed had the best cancer research laboratories.

While she was going through the nightmare of her illness, my brothers and I were having a good time in London. She had her treatment work cut out for her, while we were touring the city.   She was like a tour guide and showed us all the sights that she was familiar with. She showed us the apartment she lived in while she was a student. She took us to her favorite restaurants, shops, parks and city’s attractions. It was truly a dream.

We had a good life in Iran. Due to my parent’s jobs which took a lot of their time, we didn’t enjoy the traditional family affairs with parents who would spend their time with the children. There were relatives, aunts and nannies who took care of our daily needs. We were growing up under their direct supervision, but now here in London, we were with our parents full time.

This was when my mother underwent a failed surgery and its consequences. My uncle, Anoosh Kasra, who lived in the U.S. suggested the we move to America and we can all stay with him until we can get our feet on the ground and follow the next chapter.

My mother’s treatments continued in America until her death. Her illness, homesickness, distance from her family, the tumultuous relationship with her husband, and an immigrants life in a foreign land, all had a heavy toll on her emotions. The evidence of such pain is written in her lyrics, evident in her poetry, and ultimately the reason for some of her best work. 

She had gained fame with the song “Dawn’s Prayer” and was approached by many great singers who wanted to perform her songs. I remember well the presence of all those singers and composers in our house, who would gather around to discuss many issues in loud voices, and would play music. My brothers and I would become friends with all the artist’s children.

She tried hard to separate family life with her physical ailments. She had over a dozen surgeries in total along with trying to keep the family affairs and her artistic life endeavors. All those good and bad days, all those friendships, all the ups and downs; that’s how life went for us. 

The most vivid  image in my mind of all those years is of her with a notebook and a pen which she carried with her constantly. The lyrics would come to her at any moment, under any circumstance, and had to immediately be written down. She would spend many hours with singers and composers in recording studios, arguing with them over everything, and would come back home late.

I was with her often. When a singer’s voice would hit the wrong tone, my mother or the composers would stop the recording and start again, stop again and start all over again, until the song was perfected. I would get bored out of my mind and couldn’t wait for the night to be over. My dad had his own way of dealing with these hard times and had many arguments with her. Their life together was a roller coaster at best, with no seeming end to the ride.

My brothers and I  were growing up fast, and my mom was slowly melting like a candle. Her physical problems bit by bit reached a point when she couldn’t even drink or eat anything, and she needed help to breath…and pain…pain…pain. She had so much pain. In her last days, she was losing her eyesight.  During her last moments, my dad, my Aunt Molouk, her close friend Fattaneh Kasra, Afsar Adle, and my brothers and I were with her.

After her death, the world was not the same for us anymore. My youngest brother Ali moved in with a high school friend and his family in Northern California.  My brother Johnny and I stayed at our house in Los Angeles, accompanied by our Aunt Molouk. We had no idea what life would be like, had no worries about tomorrow, and had no fear of what was going on around us. You can fathom the result. Aunt Molouk went back to Iran; the bank foreclosed and took over the house, and we were left out. We rented a small house in Reseda, in the San Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles, and started living life with a few friends who were left fending for themselves just like us. And that was our life. 

I had a girlfriend at the time and my daughter Lexy, who coincidentally was born within 24 hours of my mother’s burial. 

I was the only single dad so I took a room of the house to ourselves. The others were scattered in the rest of the house. We had many troubled friends who would spend time with us. Youthful events and many stories…as you would probably imagine. We would scrape $900 a month to pay the rent. But for the rest of our needs, we would do anything and everything necessary to survive and to make ends meet. All those days have melted together now but a memory.

Today, when I think back to our past, I strongly believe that my mother’s overlooking and guidance from the beyond saved and directed us for things to end well. In my opinion, at least I,  should have been dead or arrested many times. 

Other than her personal belongings, what was left of mother, was a box full of her writings. But I didn’t have a velar understating of what they all were since they were written in Farsi. I had no knowledge of Persian poetry, and didn’t understand the value of what I had in my hand. 

In those days of need, when hunger and poverty had their tolls on me, and I didn’t see any  other way to make money, and thinking that my mother’s poetry were the only assets left to us, I decided to sell them. So I talked to one of my mom’s close friend Ando, a renowned composer, who strongly advised me against it. He believed publishing her work in  those turbulent times, would harm her name. So I left the box in a corner, never forgetting about it, but keeping it out of mind. I took it with me as I moved around for over 30 years.

I accidentally I came upon an interview in a website, and learned that in the Mexican culture, they have a special way of looking at the reality of “Death”. They believe every human has 3 stages of death. 

First is the moment in childhood when the person understands that the human is a mortal being and death is imminent. The second level of death is when death actually happens. And the third and last level of death is when your name has been spoken for the last time by a person.

After listening to this interview, I was left in deep thought for a while. I was wondering if my mother was done with? Was she finished? Has she reached her last stage of death?

I didn’t want whom I thought was immortal in my mind to ever die. I was an adult and I knew death is unavoidable, but I wanted her legacy to live on forever. What I heard on that day told me I could keep her legacy alive and I had to do something about it. Are we reaching the end when no one will utter the name Lila Kasra again? Is the end near? I had her writings. 

Oh, Sky, your ax is broken

I am going to stay on my feet

I will stay in my songs

Even if you take me away from my body

If the life is so full of pain

If it’s a buble over the water

I will laugh at my tears

I say it’s all a dream…

Then I started to make plans to reach my goal. I went to the shed and pulled out the box of her writings. It had been safely kept in hiding for over 30 years. To decide to open the box in itself was not an easy task or endeavor. 

To release and set free her writings to the world seemed to be an immense project. So my friend Behnaz Saranj opened the box and took out it’s contents. After a short moment, she was amazed by her findings. She insisted I organize the writings and find a publisher. I had no idea how I would do something like that. I didn’t know what to do, and where to begin. 

She told me the only person who could help and guide me through the task is the Iranian writer and journalist, Homa Sarshar. So I contacted her and asked for her help and what the next step would be. Thus Homa Sarshar referred me to Jila Mirafshar and consequently Ali Shirdel to help me package, organize, publish, build a website and to find the future journey of this book. And this is the beginning of the findings within the dust covered box in my storage shed for over 30 years.