Masiha Salari was a first-grade student.
His father says, “I think Masiha knew two months in advance that he would be martyred.” He explains that they found a drawing in Masiha’s sketchbook in which he had, somehow, drawn the event before it happened. They showed the sketchbook to the camera. He had even drawn the missile.
Speaking of the day of the tragedy, his father says:
“I woke him up at six in the morning. First, he looked to see who it was, because he liked it when I woke him up. When he saw it was me, he became happy.
Then I saw that he had left his shoes by the wall. He said, ‘Dad, I washed my shoes and they are wet.’ I told him, ‘Masiha, you have your old shoes.’ I took out his old shoes from the shoe cabinet and put them by the door.
When I came back into the room, I saw that Masiha had thrown away one of the shoes. I said, ‘Where is the other one?’ He said, ‘I do not know where I threw it. Go look for it.’
I searched for about two minutes and found it. He had thrown it into a hole. I brought it back and gave it to him to wear. Then I saw that no matter how hard he tried, that same shoe—the one he had thrown away—would not go onto his foot.
We found Masiha’s body with that same shoe.
That shoe became the sign for us. I searched for him in the morgue for three days, and in the end, it was that shoe that helped me find him.
That shoe was the sign Masiha had left for us.”
What remains of Masiha is not only the grief of a father, but also the mystery of a child’s small gestures: a drawing in a notebook, a shoe thrown aside, a trace left behind as if he knew his loved ones would need something, anything, to find him.