Dr Esmail Sondouzi

In a jungle where sun barely slips through the leaves,

Where silence is stitched with the songs of the brave,

A single flower dared bloom with no witness—

Its petals painted in dusk and in dawn,

Its roots coiled deep in the throat of the earth

Where memory sleeps and perseverance speaks.

He was that bloom.

Born from soil both generous and grave,

A man of brushstroke and voice,

Who carried entire nations in the arch of his spine.

Iran cradled his genius in its palms,

But the winds called him elsewhere—

And he answered,

Not with fear,

But with fire.

He crossed oceans like a myth in motion,

A legend unwrapping his wings mid-flight.

He brought with him not just canvas and color,

But the scent of jasmine that knows

It can grow in shadows

If it believes in the light.

And to me—

He was never just Grandfather.

He was the architect of my becoming.

He taught me that art is a form of breathing,

That the soul must be poured and planted

Like seeds in stubborn ground,

That love, real love,

Is raising a child as your own

Even when the world offers no applause.

At ninety-seven, he is the rarest blossom—

Not fragile, but forged.

A living poem with calloused hands

And eyes that still dream in color.

The jungle did not break him.

It became his garden.

And I—

I am the bloom that grew from his story,

Watered by his wisdom,

Reaching for the sun

Because he showed me

How to rise.

With love,

Fiona, your last granddaughter