Farzin and I were married in Old Town Alexandria on the first of October, 1999. The air was crisp, the colors bright with browns, yellows, reds, orange and magenta. It was perfectly clear and beautiful as the Justice of the Peace took us outside to a garden and married us. It was an intimate gathering at the cermony: Farzin’s brothers, Farid and Firooz, and my precious sister, Sisi. Later Mom and Paul showed up to have lunch with us.
Farid, Paul and Mom, me, Farzin, Firooz and Sisi Haf.
In thinking back I can not imagine a more beautiful or meaningful ceremony. Farzin and I had been together for over 9 years and we decided to take the next step. It was not an easy decision, for we both had lived on our own for many years, I was 46 years old and Farzin was 57. Neither of us were strong adherents to the institution of marriage and neither of us knew what to expect. Except for one thing for certain, Farzin was ill that first day in October. He was in the midst of a full blown major depressive breakdown. I had been through them before with Farzin during the past nine years. On that first day in October, 1999, he put on a brave somewhat happy face, tried to keep the trembling and sweating unnoticeable and kept putting his hands behind his back to keep from wringing them.
I don’t know what he was thinking, in some of our wedding pictures you can see me with my arm around his shoulder, a soothing, reassuring gesture that he would come more and more to need. It may have been that he felt overburdened by the familial responsibilities he carried and had assumed at such a young age and now here was one more, a spouse.
Through the ensuing years, I paid for my own cars, clothing, shoes, makeup. toiletries. I purchased groceries on a regular basis and often bought pieces of furniture for our home. I got my Farzin matching clothes and more chic everyday wear. I subscribed to the Kennedy Center and George Mason University Center for the Arts so we would have access to shows which he immensely enjoyed. I paid for his medical health insurance and made sure he saw all the necessary doctors. I did everything I could to relieve him of some of the financial burdens marriage entailed. But that did not work to lesson the reoccurrences of his depression. It was too deeply seated, and went back too many years. Farzin felt underappreciated. Eventually he believed his illness to be never-ending.
Farzin’s brothers, Farid and Firooz
I love autumn with its colorful hues, breezy winds, bluejays, pumpkins, cornfields and its inevitable melancholy. For we know what follows such beauty and clarity is death. October was always a rough month to endure for Farzin. His mood shifted quickly and he would on a regular basis slip into a deep seated depression. Through the years several hospitalizations occurred during this period and then he committed suicide in October 2015.
For the past two years I have often aked myself, if I did enough to help him, to save him. I am not much closer to an answer and may never be, but I do know that I am closer to a sense of acceptance about the end of Eshgheman’s life.