Portland-area family’s mourning put on hold over General Assistance rules

Shafia Safai walks gingerly across the crusty snow, careful not to fall on her way to her husband’s grave. She is used to stepping carefully through a life riven by tragedy and strife.

Her daughter and granddaughter scatter long-stemmed red roses on the icy white ground where Mohammad Safai’s body was laid to rest in November 2020. The former Afghan general was 79 when COVID-19 struck him down.

Red roses lie on snow covering Mohammad Safai’s unmarked grave in Evergreen Cemetery. Greater Portland’s Kurdish American community raised over $3,000 to put a headstone on the site. Now, the headstone sits in the stonecutter’s shop, waiting until $4,000 in General Assistance benefits is repaid. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

More than a year later, there is still no headstone on the beloved grandfather’s grave in the Muslim section of Portland’s Evergreen Cemetery. A dark granite marker has been engraved in his honor, but the city of Portland’s General Assistance program won’t allow the headstone to be installed until his burial and funeral costs are repaid.

Undaunted, his 66-year-old widow lifts her hands before her, palms to the sky, and prays quietly for her husband’s eternal peace. An asylum seeker who came to Maine nine years ago, Safai tends a roster of painful losses, including two sons who were killed by the Taliban.

“I am only one person,” Safai says afterward, through an interpreter. “It is too much for me to carry all this sorrow.”

The Safais came to Maine from Afghanistan in 2013, joining a daughter who had settled here with her husband and five children. The daughter died unexpectedly of cancer later that year, leaving the elderly couple largely alone in their Westbrook apartment, with several grandchildren living in Greater Portland.

They applied for asylum in 2014, and Shafia Safai finally got an interview with immigration officials last September, but she is still waiting for a green card granting her permanent resident status.

Mohammad Safai

So when Mohammad Safai died in 2020, his bereft widow had no resources to cover a little more than $4,000 in burial and cemetery costs. The city of Portland, which owns and operates Evergreen Cemetery, agreed to cover the fees with General Assistance funds for people in need. The agreement stipulated that Shafia Safai or her family “must reimburse the city for assistance provided in the event that you have the ability to do so.”

In the months following the funeral, Safai’s financial situation remained unchanged, and friends knew that the grave was still unmarked. One friend, Ghomri Rostampour, an immigrant advocate who lives in South Portland, decided to raise money for a headstone among fellow Kurdish Americans in Greater Portland.

By the end of 2021, the headstone was finished and paid off – just over $3,000 for a jet black marker etched with stark white lettering in English, Dari and Arabic. Then Rostampour learned from the memorial company that the headstone couldn’t be installed until Safai’s debt to Portland’s General Assistance program was paid off. She checked with city officials but made no headway.

“I was told that people who have money for a headstone obviously have money for the grave and other services,” Rostampour said. “This was a big shock to me. Because (Safai is) an old lady, she doesn’t speak English and she cannot work. They can check her bank account. She has no money, other than the benefits she gets as a humanitarian case.”

Now, the headstone sits at the stonecutter’s shop, Maine Memorial Co. in South Portland. Owner Paul DiMatteo, third-generation operator of the 103-year-old business, said he runs into this situation once or twice each year at various cemeteries.

“Most cemeteries won’t allow a marker to be placed until burial costs are paid for,” DiMatteo said. “Usually, the situation is resolved right away. People say something like, ‘Oh, my brother was supposed to pay for that. Let me call him.’ ”

In this case, DiMatteo said, he feels caught in the middle. As he speaks, he sometimes calls the headstone “Safai,” as if it embodies the man it represents. DiMatteo has invested a lot of time and effort into creating the marker, which weighs over 1,000 pounds. It took 10 months just to import the black granite from India because of supply chain issues related to the pandemic.

“It’s like we’re in limbo,” DiMatteo said. “I just want to deliver the stone.”

A headstone for Mohammad Safai’s unmarked grave in Evergreen Cemetery waits at the stonecutter’s shop until $4,000 in General Assistance benefits is repaid. The Kurdish American community in Greater Portland raised $3,000 for the granite marker for the former Afghan general’s grave. Kelley Bouchard/Staff Writer

Jessica Grondin, spokesperson for the city of Portland, declined to discuss Mohammad Safai’s case, saying it was confidential. She said city policies and practices related to General Assistance and burials are governed by state laws and municipal ordinances.

“I can tell you that all clients sign (a memorandum of understanding) in advance and are aware of the repayment rules and burial policies,” Grondin said.

Mohammad Safai wouldn’t have wanted to be known as a humanitarian case. The son of a federal judge, Safai attended the military college in Kabul. He served in the Afghan army against the Soviets and the Taliban, rising to the rank of general.

Tragedy struck when the Taliban killed one son in 2001 for failing to comply with the oppressive Islamist regime and a second son in 2010 for working with U.S. forces.

Three of the couple’s six children are still alive – daughters who live in Switzerland, Turkey and Afghanistan. Marzia Zaman, who lives in Switzerland, visited her mother last week for the first time since her father died. The pandemic and financial challenges kept her from attending the funeral or visiting until now.

“This is very difficult,” Zaman said of the headstone. “My father was a military officer and he was a proud man. It’s very difficult for all of us.”

Shafia Safai stands in Evergreen Cemetery, where only roses mark the grave of her late husband, Mohammad Safai. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer

Zaman said no one in the family can afford to pay the funeral and burial costs at this time. She wants her mother to leave Maine and live with her in Switzerland, but her mother can’t get travel documents without a green card. Her sister in Afghanistan, who was a schoolteacher until the Taliban assumed power last summer, recently was denied her application to come to the United States, Zaman said.

Despite the hardship her family has suffered, Shafia Safai cherishes memories of her husband. Also a former schoolteacher, she describes him as handsome, smart, strong and honest. The kind of man who was the same inside and out.

“Now, I have lost my husband,” Safai said. “Instead of focusing on the grief I feel, I have to focus on this problem with the headstone.”

Rostampour isn’t sure what she’ll do next. Ryan Gorneau, Portland’s GA program manager, expressed regret in an email to her.

“(I) understand your intentions were only to help the family,” Gorneau said. “I wish they passed the (repayment) information on to you prior to you paying for the marker/headstone. I hope that this family can discover/seek donations/raise monies to reimburse, and in turn meet their goal of placing the marker soon.”

Launching another fundraiser to pay for the burial and cemetery expenses would be a challenge for Rostampour, who is a business owner and sits on several community boards. For her, the stranded headstone is emblematic of a long list of difficulties facing Maine’s immigrant community.

“It’s frustrating,” she said. “I’m dealing with cases like this all the time, trying to help immigrant families. The system is too hard. It’s exhausting. I keep thinking I’m going to sneak into the cemetery at night and install the headstone myself.”