A Life Lived Fully in 21 Years

I did not have the pleasure of knowing Aram myself so cannot say much except that I wish I had. In emails Payam glowed in love and admiration for his son. Here is an article about the kind of young man that Aram was and the love he brought to the world. May his light shine as a beacon for us all. -- Debi

Payam Adlparvar holds a computer that shows a photo of his son Aram, who was a summer student at URI, on the screen. -- The Providence Journal, photo by Glenn Osmundson

1:00 AM EDT on Saturday, July 14, 2007 By Alex Kuffner, Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE — Payam Adlparvar believed God watched over his son.

Aram Adlparvar liked to travel, and in his time abroad, he’d seen his share of trouble. There was the time he was shot in South Africa. There was the stabbing in the same country. And then there was the incident when a man with a machete attacked him in Swaziland.

But Aram always survived, injured maybe, but never seriously.

“He went through all these things, but he got out of them OK,” Payam said. “I had this feeling in my heart that he would always be all right.”

So when the police called Payam on Tuesday night at the home he shares with his wife in California, he wasn’t just shocked — he was full of disbelief.

His son, a 21-year-old student taking summer courses at the University of Rhode Island, had been killed. Earlier that night, Aram was driving alone back to his residence in Kingston from URI’s Providence campus. At 7:10 p.m., his Subaru station wagon crashed into a tree about 15 feet off Slocum Road in Exeter. He died instantly.

The state police said that Aram was traveling at a high speed at the time. The speed limit on that part of Slocum Road is 25 mph. Aram was not wearing a seat belt, they said.

Aram was the second-eldest child of Payam Adlparvar, a biomechanical engineer, and his wife, Cindy, a fifth-grade teacher. Aram grew up in California, and after spending a year traveling around the world, he enrolled at the University of Hawaii. He was majoring in literature and had just finished his junior year.

His parents arrived in Rhode Island on Thursday. They are strict Baha’is and, following the rules of their faith, they cannot bury Aram far from the place of his death. He will be buried today in Swan Point Cemetery, in Providence.

They washed his body last night and wrapped it in a silk shroud in preparation for his burial.

Yesterday, in a hotel lobby in Providence, Payam and family members talked about Aram’s life. They described him as a selfless person who lived up to his name, which in Persian means “serene.”

“I like to think that he was such a good soul that God needed him,” said Payam, who is of Iranian descent.

Aram decided to take a year off to travel after graduating from El Toro High School, in Lake Forest, Calif. His first stop was Swaziland, a tiny country surrounded by South Africa. He chose to go there in part because he was born in Zimbabwe, another country in Sub-Saharan Africa, where his parents, both American citizens, had been students for several years.

He started teaching in a small village school, loving it so much that he stayed for eight months. It was during that time that he got into all those scrapes.

Once, he and a friend strayed into a slum in Johannesburg, South Africa, where some men with guns stopped their car. Aram and his friend were being carjacked. After handing over the keys, it looked like they’d be fine, but then a rival gang came upon them. The gangs started shooting at each other.

Aram and his friend got caught in the crossfire. His friend was struck in the ankle. Aram was hit in the chest, but the bullet must have ricocheted off something. It was a shallow wound, and Aram was able to dig out the small-caliber bullet.

Back in Swaziland, he was waiting in a friend’s car one day when a man wielding a machete approached. He told him to get out. Aram shifted into drive, but as the car lurched forward, the man swung the machete striking Aram’s arm and the side of the car.

“He felt bad because it wasn’t his car,” Payam said.

On another occasion, two men tried to mug him, but Aram had no money in his wallet. He told the men that if they needed money for food, they could instead come to a Baha’i study circle that night to get something to eat. One man showed up. The other came to the next meeting. Both became regular participants.

“These guys were robbing him, and he invites them to a study circle,” Payam said, shaking his head and smiling.

During the rest of his travels, Aram stopped in Europe, Asia, Australia and the South Pacific.

He decided to come to Rhode Island because he was dating a woman who is a student at URI. They had met last year while she was taking classes at the University of Hawaii. He signed up for two literature courses at URI and was returning to Hawaii at the end of the summer. He wanted to become a literature professor.

On Monday, for no particular reason, Aram had a conversation with his mother about death. She told him that when she died, she wanted him and the other members of their family to celebrate her life. She said she didn’t want everyone to be sad.

He told her that he wanted the same.

But, said Payam, his wife asked Aram to promise that he wouldn’t die anytime soon. He made the promise.

The next night, the police called with the tragic news.

“This,” said Payam, “is the first time my son was disobedient.”

“I like to think that he was such a good soul that God needed him.”

Payam Adlparvar