Happy New Year everyone! It is the Iranian New Year so don't worry about feeling confused. I'm not. We celebrated this afternoon at my Aunt and Uncle's house. My Ameh Sharzad and Amou Cyrus not my Aunt and Uncle. For this occasion it is only right to call them by the correct moniker. This was most likely the last big event at their house. It marks a time for so many of us. Or maybe just those of us who are sentimental but so many Iranians are so I'll include everyone in the collective 'us'. They have lived in this house for 24 years. My other Ameh and Amou, Shohreh and Ali, lived in the house next door at one time. It is this time frame that so many of us felt in our hearts today. We were all kids. Our parents at the ages we find ourselves at today. Early 30's to early 40's. They had young children but still wanted to feel youthful, know that they could still have fun. Here are two classic Eichler's side by side in Cupertino. Identical homes with mirror image layouts. The American dream as seen by so many, lived out in the 80's by immigrants. As our afternoon started, I mentioned to my husband as we parked the car that my other Ameh and Amou had once owned the house next door and that they would have this very same type of party with all the adults in one house and all the kids in the other. It was in those innocent safe days when leaving kids alone wasn't an issue, especially when there were larger numbers and the parents were just next door. There was no way some random drifter could waltz in and steal one of us, we were a team. We all felt it and we all felt safe. We laughed to day as we remember climbing on the roof to spy on the house next door, our parents. We made up storied about them that couldn't have been true. We watched Annie a million times until they canceled cable. Then the house was sold and they moved. It was ok, we still had the permanence of the house next door. But apparently times change. Without consent, without desire and without consult. Weirdly, it never occurred to me that they would want to move. They can't retire because they just can't possibly be that old. They are still the same Ameh and Amou. They all are. But after today, no more parties there, no more New Year, no more spying, no more memories outside of my head. Someone else will be allowed to smell the roses my Amou Cyrus planted, eat the tomatoes, sample the fruits. Or worse yet, they will tear the whole place down as so many have done in the neighborhood and build some awful new home that looks just like all the rest.
I'll try to always smile as I drive by that house in the future as I have always done in the past whether or not my Ameh and Amou were home at the time. I know though that that smile will be tinted with sadness, discolored by a general dislike for whomever buys it. They might be nice, they might be making fun and silly memories there too but they will never compare to the ones we made. Never will their jokes be as funny, their hugs as warm, their kids as cute, their joy as vast. They can never compare.
Thank you Ameh and Amou for the giving us a place to love each other and be such an amazing family for the past 24 years.
