5. Courage

When she told me she had bought Matcha, I wasn’t surprised at the fact that she found it on the shelves in Tehran during a war. Tehran was an amazing and lively city, filled with life, shops, hip restaurants and bazaars everywhere and long into the night. A city of 10 million people, 70 percent of which were under the age of 30. What I was surprised at was her will to go and look for it in the first place during such horrific times. But I should have known better.

My mom has reached the summit of Alborz in Tehran that is 5,610 meters (18,402 feet). She has worked every day of her life as a hygienist in Tehran for more than 45 years taking pain away from people and providing her family with opportunities to live in freedom and live the actual lives they want. She has created centers of caring for children who are unprivileged in Tehran for free and is running them herself. She has survived a long war in the 80s when me and my brother were growing up in Tehran and spent one year of it away from my dad during the scariest time. Of course she would stay and go out on her hike even in the smoke of war, instead of leaving Tehran. Of course. My mom who tears up fifty percent of the times when we just talk on Facetime for living so many miles away from me. I can stay here and make a difference, she always says. Of course she did.

Matcha just took on a whole new dimension in my life.