Samira Basardeh was a first-grade teacher.
Samira Basardeh—a teacher who began first grade with the alphabet of “water” and brought it to its end with the ink of her own life.
With a grief-stricken voice that could barely carry his words, the father of Mahdis Nazari spoke of the moment when the earth seemed to open its mouth and swallow the roof of Shajareh Tayyebeh School. He said that when they pushed aside the rubble with the nails of their own hands, they found the teacher’s body. But she was not alone. She was holding Mahdis and Hananeh so tightly in her arms that it was as if she had tried to make her own frail body a shield against the assault of stone and iron. In those blood-red seconds, she was no longer only a teacher. She had become a mother, a shelter, and a homeland for her students.