called Euless, Texas, he was a cab driver, and my
mom opened up her own interior-design firm.
My dad’s addiction to alcohol, prescription
drugs and gambling began before my birth, and
he was abusive, both verbally and physically, to
my mother. Ultimately that’s what led my mom
and me that January night to the shelter, where
we stayed for nearly five months and returned
several times in the months that followed.
Even though a shelter should be a place of
hope and comfort, I can still picture it, dark and
kind of prison-like—the walls pink and
gray and stark and sterile—and there
was not much for kids to do. The only
“activity” I recall was a sort of wom-
en’s circle, where the women would
get together and talk. I would sit in my
mother’s lap, and she just listened. I
couldn’t really understand why I was
there, but I remember feeling so alone
and so helpless. I wish there had been
books for me to read or that someone
would’ve at least checked in with me to
see how I was feeling.
I had this dog that I was attached to,
so during the day when my dad wasn’t
around, we’d go to the house to grab a
few things. I’d sit with the dog for five
minutes, and then we were
out the door again. At night my
mom and I slept in a bunk bed
in a room with another woman
with multiple kids. I was too shy
to talk to anybody, but one little
boy, probably 7 years old, gave me
his jacket. That selfless act was so
unexpected, so grand and so full
of care, it has really stuck with me.
That shelter was so important.
It saved my mother’s life. It saved
my life.
We returned to the house after
my mother filed for a restraining
order and my father left. As women we feel a
pressure to keep the family unit together, so
after a couple months of sobriety, my mom took
him back. And the cycle continued. We would go
back to the shelter for a week or a few days here
and there, but then we’d leave and go home.
When I was 6, my dad held a gun to my head.
He was high, and he got very depressed and dark.
He told my mother, “This life is not worth living.
I’m going to kill her and then kill myself and thenSarah Shahi is determined to teach her three
children (with actor husband Steve Howey) to be
resilient—and she does so by example. Born Aahoo
Jahansouz, the actress, who is best known for her
roles in television shows like The L Word, Fairly
Legal and her current turn on Showtime’s City
on a Hill, didn’t exactly have an easy childhood
growing up in Texas as the daughter of immigrants
from Iran. Her mother, Mahmonir, taught herself
to speak English and opened her own interior-
design business—all while trying to protect Sarah
from her father, Abbas Shahi, who was in and out
of their lives as he battled addiction. Sometimes
that meant finding alternative places to sleep
for Sarah and her siblings. (Her brother
Cyrus was 4 years old when her parents
left Iran, and he had to remain there with
grandparents until his teens; her sister
Samantha was born when Sarah was 8.)
Despite her experience, Shahi remains
positive. “We’re never victims of our cir-
cumstance,” Shahi, 39, says. “The stuff
that makes us colorful as a person are the
hardships that we go through and the sto-
ries we have to tell.” Here, she tells People
her story of love and survival.One night, when I was about 5, my
father was drunk and passed out,
and I remember my mom drag-
ging me out of bed in the middle
of the night. “We have to leave.
We have to leave now,” she whis-
pered. She was scared. I didn’t
pack anything; I just had my
pajamas. It was January, and it
was cold as we headed to a wom-
en’s shelter in nearby Arlington,
Texas. That shelter helped keep
my mother and me safe and
alive—and I now feel a sense
of responsibility to share my
story and highlight the neces-
sity of such places.
Before I was born, my parents fled from Iran
when the revolution happened in 1979. My dad
was on the hit list to be executed because every-
one who was a descendant of the Shah was on
that list, and my great-great-grandfather Fath-Ali
Shah Qajar, was one of the very first Shahs of Iran.
My father worked for the American embassy in
Iran, but when my parents settled in a little town‘I took
where I
came from
and was
able to let it
fuel me’PEOPLE July 29, 2019 63Cause &
Effect
“I think I’ve
been attracted
to roles that are
somewhat darker
because of my
experience with
my father,” says
Shahi (in Person of
Interest, top, with
Jim Caviezel and
City on a Hill with
Kevin Bacon).
CL