The Last Day: Remembering Amir Mohammad Hatami

The Last Day

Remembering Amir Mohammad Hatami

For twenty days, a mother went from door to door in the cold of Dey, hoping her son would return. But their final meeting was not the one she had prayed for.

It was Dey, in the Iranian winter. The cold settled over Shahin Shahr before the darkness did. In the evenings, people quickened their steps to reach home sooner: a lit room, the warmth of a heater, the sound of family, a meal that brought everyone together. But from the day Amir Mohammad left home, even the warmth of the house was no longer the same for his mother and sister.

Amir Mohammad Hatami was only eighteen. A young Bakhtiari man living in Shahin Shahr, he was a mechanic and a hard worker. At an age when many still turn to their families for daily spending money, he was already helping support the household. His young hands had come to know spanners, metal and oil: hands that should have worked for years, made things, built a life. He paid part of his sister's university expenses. His mother says that even when he wanted to help someone, he took care not to wound their pride. If he saw someone at work in need, he would buy something from them so that his help would not feel like charity or pity.

His mother remembers him as a hardworking son, caring and honourable, good-tempered and cheerful. Amir Mohammad was still at the beginning of life. He had dreams. He wanted one day to have a repair shop of his own. Perhaps he had imagined it many times: a place whose sign, tools and customers were his, the result of years of work and effort. But he never had the chance to reach that day.

He left home on that cold day in Dey. No one thinks, during an ordinary goodbye, that it might be the last. No one at home checks the clock to record a moment for history. No one lingers a little longer over the final glance. No one knows that a few hours later, this ordinary moment will become one of life's most treasured memories.

Then the news arrived in fragments. It was said that Amir Mohammad had been shot in the leg during the protests. Then came word of his arrest. After that, silence.

No call. No address. No voice to say where he was.

Sometimes a family breaks down not on hearing of a death, but from hearing nothing. From not knowing. From not knowing whether your child lies wounded in a corner of a hospital, is in detention, is in pain, needs help, or might open the front door a few hours from now.

From that moment, a phone was no longer just a phone. Every ring might bring news of Amir Mohammad. Every unknown number might set his mother and sister's hearts pounding for a few seconds. Every sound at the door might offer fresh hope.

Perhaps it's him.

Perhaps he's been released.

Perhaps someone has brought news.

Perhaps he's only wounded.

Perhaps he'll come back tomorrow.

In days without news, sometimes it is these ‘perhapses’ that keep a person alive.

His mother set out. Family and loved ones also searched for news. Police stations, hospitals, security offices, forensic medicine facilities: anywhere Amir Mohammad's name might be recorded in a book, a list, or someone's memory. From one door to another. From one vague answer to the next. His friends asked too; families made enquiries. One person suggested a place, another had heard something. Perhaps someone had seen him. Perhaps his name was at another hospital. Perhaps they had to search again today in the very place they had searched yesterday.

During the day, there was still something to do: walk, ask, make calls, knock on doors. But at night everything became harder. The doors closed, and the family had to return to a home with someone missing.

A heater could make the cold outside bearable. It could not ease the cold of knowing nothing.

His mother was left with a thousand thoughts. Was Amir Mohammad cold? Had they treated his wound? Had he eaten? Was anyone looking after him? Did he know that his mother had walked the city searching for him? His sister waited too. To her, Amir Mohammad was more than a brother. He was the eighteen-year-old who set aside part of his earnings as a mechanic for her studies and her future.

Outside that house, life went on. Morning came. People went to work, shops opened, universities carried on, and cars moved through the streets. But for Amir Mohammad's family, time had stopped on the day he disappeared.

A day passed. Several days. A week. Ten days. Fifteen.

And there was still hope.

Hope does not always follow logic, especially a mother's hope. Even when the signs grow frightening, a corner of her mind still leaves room for her child's return. Perhaps the door will open. Perhaps his footsteps will sound through the house. Perhaps all these days will end, and afterwards the family will speak of them as a nightmare now past.

Twenty days passed.

Twenty days in which his mother did not know where her eighteen-year-old child was. Twenty nights in which she did not know whether to pray for his health, his freedom, his being found, or simply for no bad news to come.

Then at last, news arrived.

But not the news she had waited twenty days to hear.

They were not going to say that Amir Mohammad had been released. No hospital was calling to say, come and collect your son. The front door was not going to open and let him in.

The family was summoned to identify a body.

For twenty days, his mother had lived in the hope of seeing her child. Now she had to go and see him, but in a place no mother should ever have to go to see her child.

Perhaps until the very last moment, her mind still resisted. Perhaps there had been a mistake. Perhaps they had confused the names. Perhaps that body was not Amir Mohammad. Perhaps he was still alive somewhere.

But it was.

It was Amir Mohammad.

The same boy who had left home twenty days earlier, but who could no longer call to his mother, speak to his sister, or talk about the future he had been working towards.

His mother faced her eighteen-year-old child's body: the bruises, the injuries, and what she herself described as signs of torture, including chain marks, damage to his ear, and other wounds. And Amir Mohammad's right eye, which, according to his mother, had been struck by a bullet.

Seeing her child's death was more than a moment for her. Perhaps those few seconds divided her life in two: life before seeing that scene, and life after it.

Seven months have passed, but for Amir Mohammad's mother, that scene has not passed into the past. At times she still cannot believe that what she saw was real. She still feels that perhaps she is dreaming, trapped in a long nightmare from which she must wake one day. Perhaps the door will open; perhaps Amir Mohammad's voice will sound through the house again; perhaps those twenty days, the searching, and the moment of identifying his body were only a terrible dream.

But some dreams have no waking.

Seeing her child dead has become the worst memory of her life, a memory no longer confined to one day. It wakes with her and sleeps with her. A photograph, a sound, or a small recollection brings it back. His mother says the image of that day will never leave her mind as long as she lives.

And his sister?

She too must go on living. Go to university, study, perhaps graduate one day and move towards her future. But part of that path will always carry the name of a brother who, with oil-stained hands and a mechanic's earnings, set something aside for her education. Someone who worked for his sister's future, but never had the chance to see the future he had imagined for himself.

And one dark part remains.

Even now, his mother does not know how many days Amir Mohammad remained alive after his arrest.

Where was he held?

What happened to him in that time?

When did he die?

In his final hours, did he think of home?

Of his mother?

Of his sister?

Of the repair shop he hoped one day to have?

There is no answer.

And sometimes it is that very lack of answers that prolongs the suffering.

But Amir Mohammad must be remembered as more than the last image his mother saw. Before that injured eye and wounded body, there was a life.

Eighteen years of life.

A boy who left home in the mornings to work. Whose hands smelled of metal and oil. Who earned money for the household. Who looked after his mother. Who helped pay for his sister's studies. Who helped people who had less, but did not want to hurt their dignity. Who worked and dreamed of having his own garage one day.

Eighteen should be the beginning of the road.

For Amir Mohammad, the road was cut short somewhere in the cold of Dey.

One day, he left home.

His mother waited twenty days for that same door to open again.

His sister waited for her brother.

And seven months later, perhaps a part of that house is still caught in the same waiting.

Some people never come back through the front door;

but their absence comes home every day.

What Remained After Amir Mohammad

After twenty days, they finally said Amir Mohammad had been found.

For twenty days, his mother had lived to hear that very sentence: ‘We've found him.’

But sometimes a sentence can be exactly what you have prayed for, and at the same time the worst news you will ever hear.

They took her to see Amir Mohammad.

Perhaps until the final moment, somewhere in her mind, she still expected to see a wounded boy. Perhaps she imagined Amir Mohammad lying in a bed, weak and in pain, but alive. For twenty whole days, that same hope had drawn her from a police station to a hospital, from a forensic medicine facility to other offices.

But there was no longer a boy whose hand she could take and say, ‘I've found you.’

Amir Mohammad's body lay before her.

His mother later spoke of what she saw: a bruised body, chain marks, wounds, and severe injuries to the ear and other parts of his body. And of her son's right eye.

According to his mother, after his arrest he had been tortured and given a ‘finishing shot’ to his right eye.

The same eyes in which she had watched her son's laughter for years now bore one of the most painful signs of his final hours.

For others, words such as ‘signs of torture’, ‘injury’, or ‘bullet wound’ may be a few words in a report.

For his mother, those words were her child's body.

She had raised him for eighteen years. Seen his fevers. Washed his childhood wounds. Straightened his clothes. Heard his laughter. Now, on that same body, she had to see traces of something whose timing and course during those twenty days she did not know.

Harder still, she did not know how many days Amir Mohammad had lived after his arrest.

She did not know where he had spent his last night.

She did not know whether he had cried out in pain, asked for water, called for his mother, or whether anyone had heard him.

These are questions that cannot be buried.

Then came the burial.

They carried Amir Mohammad's body away. People who should one day have gathered for an eighteen-year-old's wedding gathered instead for his departure.

In images of the ceremony, the crowd has come. Women and men stand around the body and the grave. There are flowers, Amir Mohammad's photograph, tears, and a mother who must walk among the people and accept that this time they have all come to say goodbye to her son.

A few months earlier, if people gathered around Amir Mohammad, it might have been for a celebration. In the videos that remain, we see him among other young people. He laughs, he is part of the gathering, life flows around him.

Now that same young man stood in a framed photograph on a grave.

Flowers had taken the place of his mother's hands.

The ceremony ended.

People slowly went back.

But for his mother and sister, nothing ended.

Perhaps one of grief's cruellest moments comes when the ceremony is over and everyone else returns home. On the day of the burial, the house is full. The phone rings. People come. Someone cries, someone offers condolences, someone brings water.

Then, little by little, the voices grow fewer.

The door closes.

And for the first time, the family is left alone with a truth, with no crowd standing between them and it:

Amir Mohammad is not coming home.

For his sister, her brother's absence had another shape.

Amir Mohammad was more than her brother. An eighteen-year-old still at the beginning of his own life, he worked for his sister's future.

Now perhaps every mention of university, studying, fees or the future leaves someone missing from the picture.

The brother who helped his sister reach tomorrow never reached his own.

His mother, meanwhile, entered another life.

Life ‘before Amir Mohammad’ and ‘after Amir Mohammad’.

Seven months have passed, and her writings show that at times she still cannot accept her son's death.

She speaks to him.

She asks him to come back.

Sometimes she writes that she wishes he would suddenly appear and say it had all been a joke.

Sometimes she blames herself.

She asks her son to forgive her for not having found him. For not having reached him sooner. For not having stopped what happened to him.

Reason knows that a mother is not responsible for what was done to her child.

But grief does not always live by reason.

Sometimes a mother goes back a thousand times:

If I had searched somewhere else that day…

If I had got there sooner…

If someone had answered me…

If…

And those ‘ifs’ do not end at night.

She still remembers that cold morning, when she left home at about five to look for Amir Mohammad. She had said her prayers. It was still dark. Her son's car windows were frozen, and white smoke came from the exhaust.

The car struggled to start in the cold of Dey.

Amir Mohammad was not there to get behind the wheel.

His mother had set off in her son's car to find her son.

She stood outside doors, shivered in the cold, her teeth chattering, and waited.

In one piece of writing, she remembers that it was not yet light and she was crying behind a closed door.

Later, she even wrote that sometimes they had neither water nor a bite to eat until noon. They went from office to office, thinking of only one thing:

Where is Amir Mohammad?

Today, that same car, those streets, that winter cold, even an early morning can take her back to those twenty days.

In her writings, his mother has said that life without Amir Mohammad is hard, that her days and nights have lost their order, and that ‘the light of her home has gone out’.

Perhaps this is the most precise image of life after Amir Mohammad:

The house is the same house.

The walls are the same walls.

The objects are the same objects.

But the light that lit the home for his mother is gone.

Amir Mohammad's photographs remain everywhere.

A photograph beside his mother.

A photograph with friends.

Photographs that still show a living young man's face.

Videos remain in which he laughs and moves.

His voice remains.

Sometimes his mother listens to these sounds, and the pain becomes fresh again.

When death leaves only a photograph, perhaps the mind gradually comes to terms with its silence. But video is crueller.

In it, the dead come alive again.

He moves.

He laughs.

He turns his head.

And a few seconds later, the video ends.

His mother returns to a room where Amir Mohammad is not.

She visits her son's grave. She brings flowers. Memorial ceremonies are held. Friends and loved ones gather again around his name and photograph.

On the grave is the photograph of the boy who was only eighteen.

Sometimes sweets and flowers are placed there, things that should one day have stood on a table celebrating his life.

Perhaps this contrast hurts most of all:

A mother who should have been preparing for her child's birthday, wedding or success now brings flowers to his grave.

And seven months later, part of her mind still seems unable to accept it.

At times she still imagines she is dreaming.

Perhaps she is still waiting for a voice to say:

‘Mum.’

Seeing her child's body with those injuries is more than a bitter memory. It has become an image that moves through life with her.

Sometimes Amir Mohammad's photograph brings it back.

Sometimes his voice.

Sometimes the cold.

Sometimes an eighteen-year-old in the street.

Sometimes a mother and son walking side by side.

And sometimes nothing is needed.

The memory comes on its own.

His sister has her own grief, perhaps quieter, but no smaller.

She has lost a brother who was part of her everyday life and her future.

And life cruelly asks her to move forward.

Her studies continue.

The days pass.

Years will pass.

But perhaps at many important moments in her life, one sentence will stay in her mind:

If only Amir Mohammad were here.

If only he could see this day.

In one photograph, his mother stands beside her son. Amir Mohammad is young, and they are together. In that photograph, there is still a future.

Today, that same image has become a past his mother cannot enter.

She can only look.

And perhaps say in her heart:

If only we could go back to that day for a few minutes.

Before the bullet.

Before the arrest.

Before those twenty days.

Before the mortuary.

Before she saw her son's injured eye.

Before the grave.

To a time when Amir Mohammad was still simply an eighteen-year-old leaving home, and his mother was certain he would come back.

But time does not go backwards.

Another winter will come.

Snow will settle on the ground again.

Car windows will freeze again.

People will leave home early for work.

His sister will grow older.

Amir Mohammad's friends will grow older.

But Amir Mohammad's age will never change.

He will remain eighteen for ever.

And however many years pass, in some corner of her being his mother will probably remain the woman who stood behind a closed door on a cold Dey morning, shivering, wanting only for someone to tell her:

Your son is alive.

Written by S. Rouzbeh

Note:

This account was compiled from the writings, photographs and memories that Amir Mohammad Hatami's mother has published about her son. Literary reconstruction has been used in passages for which details are unavailable.