PRESERVING VOICES & STORIES

My dearest Homa, On the second day of the New Year, I finally received your letter—the one I had been awaiting so eagerly. I couldn’t manage to answer it sooner, and since Artin was coming to stay with us for ten days before returning, I thought it best to wait and send my reply with him. You know how unreliable the post is—everything is easily monitored, and given our circumstances…

My dearest Tíní, solace of my soul It has been so many months that I have not been able to write you and what months have these been and all that has happened to us, with smiles on our faces and hearts full of anguish on the inside. Well, I do not want to write about these times. I am simply unable and incapable of doing it, nor is there an opportunity to do so. It isn’t timely either…

My children, my Náná, Mona, and Tíní, How long is it since I wrote you last? Of course you will forgive me, for Bahá’u’lláh has occupied all my time. Although I am negligent before you, I am proud, too, that my insignificant being and my worthless time, which in those days used to be evaluated with money, is now spent in activities the value of which can never be measured in money or gold…

Dear Friends, We have been extremely busy these days and it pains me to think of how I have not been able to write to you. We have so many overwhelming stories to relate, stories so glorious that one feels guilty about not being able to write them. One of the greatest, most important and most bewildering features of the present persecutions is our Bahá’í children…

Pure and sanctified art Thou, O my God! How can the pen move and the ink flow after the breezes of loving-kindness have ceased, and the signs of bounty have vanished, when the sun of abasement hath risen, and the swords of calamity are drawn, when the heavens of sorrow have been upraised, and the darts of affliction and the lances of vengeance have rained from the clouds of power…

Finally, after months and months I am sitting down to write to you, what a dreadful mother I have become! To be honest there have been so many momentous and exciting events that have surrounded us that I have had neither the time nor the strength to sit down and write. And your] weekly phone calls also induce a degree of laziness. In any case, it has been…