Meant To BeandMake To Be.

Good evening family and friends. My name is Payman Pirnazar and I am Maman Akhtar’s eldest grandson. Thank you for being with us tonight as we remember and celebrate Maman Akhtar’s life of nearly 103 years.

As many of my friends know, I have a saying that some things in life are “meant to be” and others are what we “make to be.” Maman Akhtar believed in faith, luck, destiny, and things that are “meant to be” but also often lived a life of “make to be.”

During the next 7 minutes, I would like to share 3 stories which are examples of “make to be.” Things that with a little creative tweaking of reality, change the ordinary to an extraordinary, memorable experience.

One: Birthdays

Maman’s Akhtar’s official records reflect that she lived to be just one month shy of being 103 years old. Her official birthdate is October 15, 1912. Or is it? As some of you know, back when Maman Akhtar was born, there were no accurate records kept of birthdates and many people including Maman Akhtar, didn’t know their real birthdates but instead had chosen it themselves.

According to Maman Akhtar, she had chosen the month of October because she liked the month of October and had chosen the fifteenth because 15 was one of her favorite numbers. She had also guesstimated her birth year to be 1912, plus or minus a couple of years. With something as basic as her birthday, Maman Akhtar had “make to be.”

It is interesting to note that Maman Akhtar loved birthdays. In fact, I can’t remember going to a restaurant with Maman Akhtar when we wouldn’t tell the waiter that it was someone’s birthday. Not because of the usual free dessert but because it made it a memorable experience. We would sit down at a restaurant and one of the first things that Maman Akhtar would decide was whose birthday it was going to be. This is something that I will never forget, and often do with my own family and friends when we go to a restaurant.

I remember nearly 30 years ago, my family including Maman Akhtar, went to Victoria, British Columbia to go see the famous rose gardens at Butchart Gardens. As we drove up to the entrance, there was a sign simply saying, “Please let us know if you were born in 1911.” Apparently, 1911 was the year when the Butchart residence was remodeled and enlarged from a bungalow to what is now, the Butchart Gardens, a big attraction for thousands of visitors.

Having read this sign and not knowing what to expect, Maman Akhtar informed the attendant that she was born in 1911. Again, Maman Akhtar had chosen her official birth year to be 1912 but in reality, it could have been 1911. So, guess what? It was “make to be” 1911, at least for that day.

The attendant made a phone call and a couple of minutes later told us that not only Maman Akhtar but our entire family would be considered as special guests of Butchart Gardens for the day. This included not only free admission but also free food throughout the day. What the attendant didn’t know, but would soon learn, was that we were not 1 but 2 car-loads of people! I think there were about 10 or 12 of us.

So with one swift, yet innocent action, Maman Akhtar had upgraded us from visitors to “special guests” status. It was indeed a very special day which culminated with a great sit-down dinner at their beautiful restaurant. The manager even took a picture of our entire family to post with the pictures of the other select, few 1911 “special guests”. I am sure that the picture is still hanging somewhere at Butchart Gardens today.

Two: Flight

Back in June, I was going to New York for a few days and went over to see Maman Akhtar to say good by. I held her hands, told her how much I loved her and thanked her for everything. I left her apartment in tears because I wasn’t sure if she would still be there when I came back.

To be honest, it was hard for me to visit her. Not because I didn’t care, but because I cared so much. She has always been one of the strongest people I have known. Active, witty, courageous, independent, positive, determined - sometimes even down right stubborn. These are qualities that also shine from her daughters, her grandchildren, and her great grandchildren.

I have always believed that women, especially with the things that really matter, are stronger than men. In her 102 plus or minus 2 years of life, Maman Akhtar had some very low lows and some very high highs.

I was not comfortable seeing her laying in bed, sometimes in pain. I would come home and tell my wife, Sogol, this is not “living.” People are alive longer but not really living. This is quantity; not quality. This was not the way I wanted to see or remember Maman Akhtar.

On several occasions, I mentioned to Myra, Maman Akhtar’s care taker and friend of nearly 10 years, “It is like sitting at the train station. You know the train is going to come at some time. You just don’t know when.”

Like most things in her life, even death was something Maman Akhtar was doing a “make to be.” For more than the past 10 years, Maman Akhtar would joke that she was in continuous negotiations with G-D to live longer. She would negotiate with G-D to be alive for someone’s wedding and then for another person’s graduation and so on. She was obviously one of the best negotiators I have ever known.

Looking back now, I realize why the train kept getting delayed. Not until a group of caring and wonderful hospice nurses helped her and our entire family to be in a more comfortable, pain-free state that Maman Akhtar could open the tracks to allow the train to come. When the train would arrive at the station, Maman Akhtar would be surrounded by her many loved ones and she would board the train in peace.

Sunday morning, I was at the beach, editing a picture of a Hawk I had take a few minutes earlier, when I received a text from my mom, simply saying “Maman Akhtar is now at peace.” As I realized what this meant, my eyes filled with tears and immediately, as reflex, I replied by sending the photo of the Hawk back to my mom.

Obviously, while I had been expecting a train, she had chosen to take flight. Made sense. She lived life her way, free. Clearly, trains on tracks weren’t her style.

Three: Life Canvas

In 2005, Steve Jobs made a now very famous commencement speech at Stanford. In it, he talks about “connecting the dots” in life and how certain events in one’s life lead to another and that we can sometimes connect the dots only when we look back. This has always resonated with me, especially since it is also what my dad would often say.

A few months ago, I was talking about this with one my friends and her daughter who had recently graduated from college. During our conversation, I pointed out that just like a children’s connect-the-dots book with usually 10 or 20 dots on a page, when we are young, our life canvases don’t have too many dots. You connect the 20 or so dots and get simple images like a star or a duck.

As we get older, or as some of my friends say, “have more life experiences,” we tend to have more dots, which produce more complex, detailed mages. Like not only a duck or a star, but perhaps a duck floating on a pond in a beautiful forest under a sky full of stars.

These dots, representing important events in one’s life, are not just dependent on our age but also on our “life experiences.” The richer our life experiences, the more dots, and hence the higher the detail we will have on our Life Canvas.

It is like standing very close to a digital screen or a painting. Up close, you notice a whole bunch of tiny dots but only when you step back, broaden and change your perspective, you'll “see” the dots as a collection. This is when you actually appreciate the true beauty of the entire image.

So what is the “make to be” here? Color. On the Life Canvas, black and white dots are events that happen “to” a person, usually not under the control of the person. The color dots, however, are events that a person has allowed, chosen, or wanted to happen. The colored dots are “Make To Be.” Timshel.

Without doubt Maman Akhtar’s Life Canvas is one that is rich, full of color, and in high-resolution. Although we will miss Maman Akhtar, we know that she is beside us each time we add another colorful dot to our Life Canvas. I know that it is this kind of Life Canvas that she wishes for all us that she loves.