Sara Baluch and Mohammad Sharifi fell in love unexpectedly and he was taken from her equally suddenly. She never imagined this is how their love story would end.
Sara Baluch, 22, did not expect to fall in love so completely and never in her dreams thought that the love of her life would be taken right before her wedding. Her love ran so deep that she chose to honor her slain fiancé by wearing the wedding gown the day they were supposed to be wed when she walked up the hill to his graveyard. But the rain stopped her. Not for long though.
On March 9, she was supposed to get married to Mohammad Sharifi, a gem of a person, but tragedy struck and instead she spent March 10 wearing the white gown at his grave in Tennessee.
Sharifi, 24, was killed at a parking lot of a Hixson Pike apartment complex when he was trying to sell his Xbox One on February 19, which was a little more than two weeks before his wedding. A 20-year-old man, D’Marcus White, was charged with homicide for shooting Sharifi. The residents of the area said that nothing like that had happened there before, according to Times Free Press.
Sara wore an ivory chiffon dress and a white tulle veil with a pearl hair piece to Harpeth Hills Memory Gardens to spend the day with him. She could not contain her tears that day and neither could his family.
"We were supposed to be together," she sobbed. "I'm so sorry, Mohammad. I'm so sorry. So sorry,” she kept saying.
Sharifi was well-loved and many friends and family turned up that day. To his father, Mohssen Sharifi, he was not just a son but a teacher too.
"He was my adviser for finances, taxes, organizing. Recently, he was my teacher. [Now], I can't see him and ask him for his advice. 'What do you think, my son, about this?' What am I supposed to do?" he said, also crying. The family has been too overwhelmed with grief and there has not been a day when they haven’t cried. They are reminded of him wherever they go.
"Until we go to the grave, we will not forget Mohammad," he said. "He always tried to please us," Mohssen Sharifi said. "He always asked me, 'Are you happy? Are you OK?'"
For Sara, who has her entire life ahead of her, this is a dark and tragic beginning that she can never forget.
She narrated their love story that is now hers only to Time Free Press. One month after the couple met Mohammad kept asking her out but she said no because of school. She didn’t want to be in a relationship then. But she said yes because of his persistence.
"I know this sounds like a movie and that it can't be true," she told the Times Free Press in an interview on February 27, "but that night, I knew he was it. And so did he!"
It took them only two weeks to be completely in love. "It was perfect," she said.
She recalled how patient he was. Once, she burned his neck with a candle accidentally and instead of getting angry he just patiently told her it was okay.
“But he just looked at me. He said, 'It's OK, baby. I love you’,” she said.
He never yelled and would calm her down whenever she was anxious until she felt better.
"When you came to him with a problem, it became his problem," she said. " He would sit there and try to tell you how you can fix it. He wouldn't just sit there and be like, 'Oh, I'm sorry.'"
His community also loved him and he was a responsible young man who had already set up a home for his wife and him to live in after the marriage. The planner had prepared Sara’s birthday gifts more than a week ahead.
Her birthday was on February 27, a week after he died, and she received the birthday gifts later.
"He was so excited to give it to me. He said, 'Whenever you have it, you have to promise me that you're gonna wear it for our aghd," she said. (Aghd is an Iranian wedding ceremony.)
His mother gave her the gifts, including a Rolex watch he promised her a while ago.
“I had no idea he kept his promise," she said. "That's why he was so excited to give it to me. It was the hardest thing because he got them for me. He's not here and he's still surprising me. He's not here and he's still giving me the world!"
Such is the power of true love. It gives and keeps on giving.
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