Fear not, for I am with you
–Isaiah 41:10

My mother, Elizabeth, (Fatemah being her Iranian name), was born in 1918 in Rasht, a province of northern Iran, situated on the Caspian Sea coast. It was there that she spent her childhood. My mother’s mother was half Russian and half Polish, and her father was Iranian; although at that time, one would call him Persian. My grandparent’s story is very romantic: grandfather fell in love with this young Slav in Tiflis (known as Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia today), and he took her from Tiflis to bring her to Iran. When Mum was born, my grandmother had her baptised as a Catholic, in secret. Because of this, Mum has always said that the Lord’s hand was on her life from an early age.

Mum had a relatively happy childhood. Three years after Mum was born, her mother had another daughter. After some time, the little family moved to Tehran. But, my grandparents could no longer see eye to eye, so they decided to divorce, something that was unheard of at that time. My grandfather had a passion for France. So he left for France with his two daughters in tow. That was Mum’s first heartbreak. She adored her mother and when she left, she knew, somehow, that she would never see her again. Once in Paris, my grandfather opened a restaurant (one of the very first ‘ethnic’ restaurants in Paris). As he couldn’t raise his two daughters alone, he put them in a Catholic boarding school. Soon thereafter, Mum’s younger sister returned alone to Iran because her mother couldn’t live without her. Meanwhile, in the boarding school, Mum tasted a religious education that was very different to the one that she would have experienced as a young Persian girl in Iran. I believe she already had a love for Jesus.

The first drama of Mum’s life was her mother’s death at the age of thirty-three. Until her 70s, Mum continued to cry for her mother, whom she ended up idealising. On the other hand, she remained firm in her belief, even when her father tried to teach her Muslim prayers. Once she left school, she studied to be a midwife at Port Royal Hospital in Paris. As soon as she completed her studies, she left for Iran. You have to imagine what Iran was like in the thirties… She arrived there, hardly speaking a word of Persian and was looked after by her father’s family. Not only did she suffer from culture shock, but they also wanted to marry her off, which she always resisted. Through circumstances, she found herself at the age of 22 as the director of a private clinic, the Nadjmieh Hospital. She ran the hospital with an iron fist in a velvet glove. She knew how to make herself respected and also gave the clinic a complete overhaul.

It was there that a young officer, who was in love with one of her friends, came to see her to plead his case with her friend. The long and short of it is that he ended up falling in love with Mum, and they were soon married. Mother had told my father that she was Catholic, but he didn’t have a problem with that; he was actually even more delighted. You have to see all of this in the light of a traditional Eastern society, and yet open to the West. Iran was a country that was full of contrasts and unique: it was completely different to other countries of the Middle East. Iran, as a nation, has always been attracted to the West, and open to western influences. For example, in the nineteenth century, the emperors, kings and lords of the ancient dynasty, the Kadjars, sent young people to Europe (and above all to France) to learn new trades and skills.

To be continued…