The Imam had a powerful presence in the house. For example, he would calculate the time it took for a bud to bloom and the petals of that bloom to shrivel and fall. For instance on the same day of the explosion at the Islamic Republic party headquarters and the martyrdom of Mr. Beheshti and the rest of his friends, he turned his countenance towards his niece and said: “Do you know how many days it is since this flower has bloomed?” Many times the Imam would point to a flower and address me saying that the bud was his grandson ‘Ali while he would associate the flower whose petals were falling with him. The Imam loved beauty, cleanliness and fragrance.
He was in love with beauty: Sayyid Ahmad Khomeini