April 28, 2003
There must have been so much going through the mind of Mohammed Karim as he watched his daughter Maleeha getting married on March 28. Karim, after all, was the desperate father who begged officials in a Peshawar Pakistan refugee camp to allow his injured daughter "one small place" on the rescue flight that subsequently brought her to North America.
Back then, no one could ever have predicted that Maleeha, who had shrapnel in her left brain courtesy of a Russian butterfly bomb, would even walk again, let alone someday become the bride of the handsome Asan Rahmanzia. But that’s exactly what happened in an Afghan wedding ceremony at the Ellas Banquet Hall on Danforth Road.
And if the father of the bride was pensive on that evening, you can imagine the emotional state of yours truly, Maleeha’s adopted Canadian mother since she was age 9.
"Afghan brides wear green," Maleeha told me over the telephone a few days before the wedding. "But I am going to change half way through festivities into a white wedding gown and veil."
Of the 200 or so wedding guests, no one’s neck strained further than the Canadian mother of the bride to get her first glimpse of Maleeha in her wedding finery.
Surrounded by family members, she and the groom were walked at snail’s pace toward the head banquet table, the bride a vision of beauty. A green dress? This was a dark forest green lace gown that showed off the bride’s dark eyes and hair. Wearing a tiara with flashing stones over a swept-up hair do, Maleeha looked like the lovely dark princess of a somewhat exotic fairytale.
The only one missing for the ceremony was Mostapha Zahir, grandson of ex-Afghan king Zahir Shah, who now plays a key role in the royal family’s current activities in faraway Afghanistan, and who was recently appointed Afghanistan’s ambassador to Italy. How I wish Mostopha, who knew Maleeha when he was studying political science at Queen’s University, could have been there. Perhaps this internet column will find its way to him.
During the long evening, it was difficult to take my eyes away from the bride. My own emotions surprised me, and I got downright teary with the reverberating thought, "My little Malley’s getting married."
I don’t know much about Afghan marriage customs, and had to be told by her uncle Abdullah that the serious sad stare she maintained for the entire evening was how Maleeha was supposed to look.
Toronto Free Press sales manager Judy Williams, municipal election candidate for Ward 2 Toronto-Danforth candidate Steven Christianson, Alan and Sheila Henriksen, of Kingston, my escort, and myself were the only non-Muslims in attendance.
I was touched when Judy told me how Maleeha had teared up when it was my turn to kiss the bride at the head table, and moved to discover Maleeha’s eyes constantly searching the large room to find me.
As I had written on my wedding card to her, Maleeha is "my life."
From the day I first laid eyes on Maleeha at Washington’s Andrew’s Air Force base, she never went out of my life. Then, she was the only little girl among 90-odd wounded mujahideen brought to the west by Henriksen’s Afghan Medical Relief Organization (AMRO).
All of those red letter days from the opening chapters of my life with Maleeha. The first night in a new country, when she laughed at my nonplussed look after she had discovered me using her toothbrush; hers issued from a Peshawar refugee camp, mine picked up in a hurry for a trip to Washington from at a Yonge Street Shoppers Drugmart. That wonderful day her uncle cryptically told me over the phone to go out onto the street, where I subsequently found Maleeha walking on her own for the first time.
One of the most memorable days just has to be the day her family arrived, and the mental picture I will always carry in my heart of her mother Bibi Gul, who hadn’t seen her daughter in seven years tearfully tracing Maleeha’s face with her fingers through a window at Pearson International Airport. On their arrival, I assumed Karim would be overjoyed to be reunited with his sons, which he was. But at the airport that day, he ran past his sons to find the five-year-old daughter he had not seen since infancy. He raised the little girl to the sky, shouting "Thank you, thank you."
There was the day that Donal O’Leary told a much relieved Toronto Sun reporter that she had been right in her steadfast belief that "Maleeha is not a vegetable, in fact she’s a very intelligent little girl."
The day years later when Maleeha graduated from a Scarborough high school at the top of her class. All of these memories are my life.
Today Mrs. Asan Rahmanzia is a philosophy student at University of Toronto. She’s busily furnishing an apartment, living independently of her parents and siblings for the very first time, and is the proud owner of a pet canary.
Husband Asan, sponsored by Maleeha, has been in Canada since December. Now working the overnight shift in a factory, he had worked for the United Nations in Peshawar for the past 10 years.
Worried about a marriage that was arranged, Maleeha told me in her own words, "He’s crazy about me. I’m crazy about him."
Maleeha’s happiness means the world to me.
Meantime, Asan could have a new life-problem: a mother-in-law named Judi McLeod.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
Pursuant to Title 17 U.S.C. 107, other copyrighted work is provided for educational purposes, research, critical comment, or debate without profit or payment. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for your own purposes beyond the 'fair use' exception, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. Views are those of authors and not necessarily those of Canada Free Press. Content is Copyright 1997-2018 the individual authors. Site Copyright 1997-2018 Canada Free Press.Com Privacy Statement