Sometimes Anna felt that she was almost dead, or injured by all these years of loneliness and tragedy, or by this life; things that had happened to her. Her father being sick was an added torment to her. She was weary from an old wound, a fracture that never healed properly. Sometimes she felt neither she was needed, and most importantly, nor she needed herself. Occasionally she had a sense of guilt for leaving her parents specially after the death of her brother. She sometimes even felt responsible for the death of Aria and Steve. Nevertheless, at all times she knew that she would survive even if more tragic things happened to her. She had waited to change with years, with times, with new people, new environment; nonetheless, she was not sure if the change had come or would ever come. People called her strange woman; but she believed she was as normal as anyone in her situation. However, no matter what she thought or felt, everything was only her predestined life- a life that needed to be lived.
Her frantic anguish would find no other prey to turn to; therefore, it turned inside where she desperately craved some peace and tranquility. She felt isolated; in fact she felt that the entire world around her was isolated and there was no where and no destination to turn to. The questions she asked people were all fragments of ideas and feelings she, herself, owned; and the ideas she possessed were all isolated parts of her doomed life. It all rotated. But even in this condemned life, there were moments of bliss. The day she went to the court house of the Immigration Building On Commerce Street to be sworn and become an American Citizen was one of those blissful days in her life.
She stood there, bewildered, giving up one nationality and accepting another. Torn between all emotions that one could have in a moment like this, she stood, listened, sang, and swear under oath and finally became American Citizen. A brown, large envelope was handed to her when her name was called. The judge shook hand with her and congratulated her. Inside the envelope was her white color Naturalization document with a gold seal- a twenty seven years old widow, Anna Nourie- Williams. She was given the option to change name if she wanted, but she decided to leave it the way it had been for the last seven years and to keep both her maiden name and married name.
In December of 1977, Anna told her parents that she would visit them in Iran next month. As an American Citizen, she would be traveling with her American passport. To her surprise, her parents protested her going to Iran. She wondered why! But she, too, had heard about the demonstration in some cities of Iran against the Shah; and the opinion of the revolutionaries against America. Nonetheless, she was determined to go because she was terribly worried for the safety of her family and health of her father. As a new American Citizen , she had already petitioned to get green card for her parents; but that would take time and their interview was to be in August of 1978.
She had tried to convince her parents for coming to America and living with her; but her sixty years old father was inflexible and adamant. She could recognize her father's willfulness and intransigence because he was a man that would never bend for rioters. Anna in reality, was just like her father. She perfectly understood his point of view. Their lives were there, in Tehran, hers was here, in Dallas. Immigrating was hard for people their ages. They had lived in a certain way and changing all those would be difficult and almost impossible. But what would she do with all these feelings of missing, fear, worrying, and a sense of protecting and taking care of them now that they were old and in danger? What Anna did not realize was that the danger weighted on her parents being aristocrat more than age, if they were healthy which she doubted.
To Be Continued
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