AMIN – A celebration of a well-lived, albeit short, life

By Maryam Tirandaz, Beijing, China

In order to sit down and write this, I had to get inspiration.  Inspiration about Amin would naturally come by sitting down to a pile of tangerines (or other fruit) and indulging.  He used to call the little tangerines you find in the fall in Beijing “God’s little nuggets of goodness.”  My husband and I just smile in quiet remembrance of Amin when we see fruit.   Amin was an equal opportunity lover of fruit and he would rotate his favoritism.  One month, it would be pears; he just couldn’t get enough of them.   The next, it would be pomellos.  Of course, mangos were the king of fruit.  I remember when we went to Malaysia together and had half a day to just browse a mall; we spent the whole time looking for dried mangos to take back to Beijing… he LOVED dried mangos!

Of course the purpose of this note isn’t to laud the beauty of fruit.  It is to celebrate Amin.  He was one of a kind.  Yes, all of us who have become “aminamirkia.org” addicts know how wonderful a person he was.  He was a very private, humble person so many people may not know the extent of his golden character.  He was a true gentleman.  In his short thirty years on this physical plane, he managed to touch the lives of pretty much everyone he came in contact with.  Naturally, the young girls immediately noticed how handsome, well-groomed and sweet his demeanor was.  However, he was much much more than that.  He tried with all his might to live a good life.

There are several traits that Amin had that stand out in my mind.  He was sincere to the core, he was impeccably clean and organized, he strove for perfection and as a result was extremely disciplined and he was all love.

How many of us can still hear Amin saying “No Tarof, No Tarof, Really, Really…” when he talked with us?  We used to think that Amin was all tarof.  That he always bent over backwards to do things for us.  But the reality was that he was always sincere.  There was no tarof.  He never did anything he didn’t really want to do.  If he wanted to work-out instead of joining us for dinner, he did.  If he had an appointment he would never cancel just to sit around with us.  If he didn’t feel like calling, he wouldn’t until he really felt like it.  He was sincere in his interactions with everyone.  Yes, he did bend over backwards to do things for us, including take care of my parents while they visited Beijing, coming to stay with me when I was pregnant so that I wouldn’t be alone when Zhou Hai was away, or insisting to pick up the bill when we went out.  He did all of these things out of his sincerity.  No tarof, really.

Anyone that took one look at Mr. Amin Amirkia could tell how special a person he was.  He was an “aqa”, a true gentleman.  He was always impeccably clean, tidy and stylish.   We had the bounty of having him live with us for some time.  We knew when he did the dishes because the way the dishes were put in the drying rack was only as Amin would.  Each dish was always at a perfect angle and spaced exactly the same distance apart.  He was amazing.  We never saw him disheveled.  Even when we all got up during the fast in the mornings to have breakfast together at 5:30am, he was well put-together.  He had shoe horns in his shoes.  Always dry-cleaned his shirts and he used to joke that the barber would laugh at him because he was so particular about the way his hair (or rather each hair) was cut.   Unfortunately, he suffered as a result, because the world around him was anything but clean.  I remember one day he came to our house recounting how crowded the subway was.  He was literally packed in like a sardine.  He said there was no way to fall because everyone was squeezed in so close to each other.  Then with his sweet laughter he said that the guy up against him had actually sneezed in his face but he had no choice but to stand straight there, as he always did.  No doubt he suffered in situations such as these.
One would think that someone who paid such close attention to his appearance would have a closet full of clothes.  On the contrary, he lived a simple almost sparse life.  After he passed, as we went to pack up his apartment, we marveled at how simply he lived and at how little there actually was in his closet.

There is no one I know that was more disciplined than Amin.  He would work until odd hours of the morning, come home and instead of calling it a night, he would go for a run around the neighborhood.  No matter how tired he was.  He treated his body and his soul with dignity.  We used to joke and say that we don’t think anyone has ever seen Amin slouch.  He strove for perfection and he was disciplined in his approach to perfection.  He strove for perfection in his work.  He would make sure that any document that he touched had undergone his special attention.  He strove for perfection in his appearance.  He was very careful about keeping his body in tiptop shape.  He strove for perfection in his spiritual life.  Dedicating himself over and over again to his faith and serving tirelessly.  His friends recount how he would sometimes travel almost two hours each way in order to get to a Baha’i study circle that lasted only a couple of hours itself.  Furthermore, in order to prepare for that study circle, he would write out the words he didn’t know and learn the vocabulary for each lesson he would cover.  He rarely did things on a whim.  He either did something well or didn’t do it at all.  He was committed to working, living and staying in China.  Difficulties in finding a job, language obstacles, loneliness, or pollution never were going to stop him or send him packing home.  He endured, he strove, he never complained and was profoundly humble.  He was an example for all of us.

Yet his discipline and goal of perfection didn’t make him a dull person.  He had a very special sense of humor.  He would say the funniest things at the most opportune moments and sometimes would play pranks on friends.  His sharp wit always made us laugh.  He enjoyed life and was joyful.  I remember a trip we took to Vietnam together.  We stayed at a luxury villa with the Farids.  He and Vafa shared a room and from my room I could hear the music blaring while he showered, it was the Beatles.  He often listed to music while he showered and loved music, whether it was classical, Persian classical, Chinese classical or even Chinese pop music.

Amin had a heart of gold.  I remember when he was a toddler.  He was so affectionate and loving.  He had a special way to kiss and that memory has stayed with me to this day.  He used to squeeze his face into your cheek and just stay there.  It wasn’t really a kiss; it was more like gluing his face up to yours.  It was the sweetest.  Of course, those days of kissing only lasted while he was a little toddler.  In his adult life, he made sure to always keep a proper distance from everyone.  Nonetheless, it was clear how much he loved us all.  Anyone who ever held a conversation with him knows how he strove to put one at ease and focus attention on that person.  He really cared about everyone.  He adored his parents, grandmother, siblings, aunts and uncles, cousins and most of all the new generation of babies in the family.  He had a particular soft spot for children and babies.  He would often talk about Arman and Ava, Lily, Tia and Kia, Aria, Daria and Paya, Omid, Shayan, Ruhi and I’m sure his soul will take great care of Zayn.  There weren’t many young men his age that adored children as much.  He used to take pictures of and play with random Chinese children and come home to show us.  The children felt so at ease with him because they could feel his sincerity, kindness and love.  It was the sweetest thing to watch.

The day before he left for Hong Kong, Amin was at our house for a family dinner celebrating the Moon Festival.  He was the last person to leave that night and right before he left he asked to borrow a carry-on suitcase.  After being offered several choices, he picked one of Zhou Hai’s bags.  After we heard that we will not see Amin again in this physical world, we realized that the last time that bag had been used was by another of Zhou Hai’s friends who had taken it on pilgrimage.  As a beautiful example of dramatic poetry, Amin packed his bag that had come from the Holy Land and took his last journey to be with His Beloved.

He used to sit with us until all hours talking, strategizing, advising, laughing and eating.  There were many nights were I had to call it a night because I didn’t have the endurance he did to stay up and talk more.  We will miss Amin immensely!  We can still hear his infectious laughter in our house.  We will make sure that Ruhi grows up knowing about her Dayee Amin and how wonderful he was.  Amin was always a man of his word.  When we came back in September from our trip to the US, he came over the day after we arrived.  We were jet-lagged but Amin was so excited to see us after two months.  We told him how much we missed him at the family reunion that was held at his parent’s house and how wonderful it was to be with his mom and dad.  He said that he wished he could have been there but that he was going to do everything he could to go back to the States at the end of summer/ early fall.  He wanted to see his parents, Laila, Ashkan, Arman and of course, the newest addition to the family, Ava joon.  Amin was a man of his word.  Through a tragic and strange set of circumstances, he has made it back to those he loved.

We love you Amin joon.  You will forever be in our hearts and we will try to serve Him, in your name, as we know you would want.

Maryam, Zhou Hai & Ruhi