Ali Ruzbehani

Ali Ruzbehani (October 26, 1987 – November 4, 2022)

In Tehran on 4 Aban 1366 (October 26, 1987), a child named Ali Ruzbehani was born; years later, the same date that should have marked his 35th birthday became the beginning and the end of a painful story.
On the afternoon of 4 Aban (October 26, 2022), in the streets of Tehran’s Bani Hashem area, a moment unfolded that severed Ali’s life from its ordinary course. Shots—reportedly pellets—struck his body: his jaw, his back, and the spine that was meant to keep him upright against the world. But that day, his body could not endure.
At the same time, a home prepared for a birthday celebration was suddenly filled with silence. Cake and candles were replaced by anxiety and unanswered calls. The news arrived before Ali could return home—sudden and merciless. Friends informed the family, and in a rush where hope and fear were intertwined, they reached him.
He was not taken by ambulance—or so his family’s account says. The short journey to the hospital, by taxi or another vehicle, became a passage between life and something like suspension. Ali could no longer speak properly. It was as if even words had fallen behind him. Only glances, gestures, and the squeezing of hands remained.
Days passed in the hospital. Days in which every moment oscillated between hope and collapse. The injuries were deeper than they first appeared; his body did not only bear external wounds, but also damage to the hidden structure of life itself. Doctors tried, his family stayed by his bedside, and time moved forward in silence.
But on 13 Aban (November 4), the day that deepens autumn, Ali passed away. Not at home, not amid the birthday celebration that was meant to be, but in a cold, bright hospital room that bore witness to his final struggles.
Afterward, narratives emerged—his family’s account of pressure, of attempts to impose names and labels that did not align with his lived reality. Yet what remained for them was not these disputes, but absence; a loss that grew heavier with each passing day.
Forty days later, Behesht-e Zahra cemetery witnessed a gathering of people who had come to bid farewell. His father, in a grief beyond words, spoke of unforgiveness; of a wound that could not easily heal. His brother spoke of the final moments: of a hand still being held, of a gaze that still wanted to stay, and of the silence drawn between life and death.
Among the crowd, chants rose and voices intertwined; yet beneath all those sounds, something quiet and heavy remained: the life of a young man that ended exactly at the point where it had begun.
And now, his grave is no longer just a marker. It has become a memorial that his family carries with them each time they visit and leave, as if something of him still lingers in the movement between presence and absence—something unfinished, only changed in form.