Siblings' Love

From the moment Arman appeared in the third chapter of my life story as a main character, I started worrying about his future and how to keep him safe and happy. It didn't take me long to realize that we had to have more children, at least one more, so that Arman would not grow up with no siblings and be alone for the rest of his life. Four years later, our beautiful Shahdi, our bundle of joy, arrived. From the moment she was born, I tried my best to nurture a loving relationship between Arman and Shahdi, a bond which could have withstood a lifetime. As soon as Shahdi grew out of her baby crib, we put them in the same bedroom, sharing a bunk bed and everything else. I believe our strategy paid off and by the end of the sixth year when Shahdi finally moved out to her own bedroom, they had become very close and loving towards one another. Their love persevered through the years despite a couple of disagreements in the last year of Shahdi's life. Shahdi had an unconditional love for her brother, and vice versa. Arman loved his sister very much and was not happy with the way she was affected by depression. He did his best to help her as well but the final outcome was not something that any of us expected.

Shahdi was in seventh grade when Arman left for college. A couple of years later, she started hanging out in the basement most of the time and ended up using her bedroom mainly as a dressing-room. Whenever Arman came back for a visit during the holidays and summers, the two of them spent many hours together in the basement talking after Mehrdad and I had already retired for the night. Many times Arman had asked me after returning home from an outing if Shahdi was in the basement. If she was, he would go directly down there and would not come up for a long time. As their mother, I was pleased to see how much my children loved one another and I was hoping that they would be able to maintain this loving relationship for the rest of their lives. It truly breaks my heart that this bond was severed by Shahdi's passing and Arman is no longer able to run downstairs to have a tête-à-tête with his beautiful and smart sister. They both had spent years cultivating their relationship and it is a shame that the result of all that effort was so short-lived.

My heart not only aches for the exceptional daughter we lost but for the loving and kind sister that Arman lost.  All my efforts over the years to develop and nourish this strong unconditional love between them were wasted. Yes, it did work but it did not last.  Now, Arman is alone, without any siblings.  This fact breaks my heart.  I had envisioned Arman and Shahdi together throughout their lives but now Arman will not have the love and support of his sister.

Arman and Shahdi were always such cute, smart, well-behaved and good-natured kids that many people had told me over the years that I ought to have had more children. It was my dream to have four children, two boys and two girls, but we decided to stop at two and concentrate on them (not that we did a good job at the end) . That is the reason I am now an advocate of either having no children, or having at least three, not just two!