This Little Girl's Gonna Rock

I'm Off to Meet That Special One

“I snuggle into the crook of his arm, feeling safe ,secure and loved. It was me and Baba against the world.” My, now 20 year-old daughter Riyah, began her essay about me for Sophomore year high school English class with this sentence. She ended the essay, however, “Now I sit in the car with him in awkward and bitter silence, not having anything I want to talk to him about. Just anxiously waiting to get away”.

Riyah was born a month early, 4#,9 oz, with great big brown eyes, in a relatively easy delivery, which left my wife only hungry for pizza. On the spot I chose her name, which means a gentle bountiful breeze from God. From that point on, this short, frizzy brown haired Dynamo and I were everywhere together. We kept each other company at boring parties. She became my little tomboy who played basketball and football with me. We watched history channel together and spent hours in bookstores. I taught her to drive my stick-shift Mustang starting in 7th grade. She cried when I had to work during her vacations.

Then... I strayed from her mother. We separated when Riyah started Sophomore year. My sixteen year old daughter had to be the support for her mom and her younger sister. I moved to an apartment furnished with one Ikea Poang chair, a futon, moving boxes for a dining table, and a phone as my TV. In two years, living 2 miles down the road, she never came to see me there. I was good for a ride, but that was about it...and those rides were as described. She was growing into a beautiful, intelligent, active yet pious young woman; but whom I experienced as a shadow. Homecoming court in high school, university newspaper editor, president of the Muslim Students Association, a scholarship student. I could see the general outlines, but had to await details from my estranged wife.

Then one miraculous night at Andy's Jazz Club on Hubbard St, while waiting to pick Riyah up from a delayed Amtrak train, a melody touched my soul- I don’t know what the song was- but it told me that God knew me and loved me. I then began my healing over the next two years. I became aware of my racquet of not asking for what I wanted but then becoming bitter when I didn't get whatever it was- I made amends to my former spouse. We got to the point this March where we decided to create a new possibility. We did not hate each other nor want to hurt each other. We just didn’t belong together, except as co-parents. We sat down together over 12 hours and created a settlement that worked for each other. Then all four of us went and watched Three Billboards Outside Ebbing Missouri and shared a pizza.

Last month was Ramadan. After fasting all day and praying half the night, Riyah set out to drive from Ann Arbor to Chicago on a miserable rainy day , The fatigue, hunger, and rain got to Riyah and she fell asleep while driving. Her car was totaled but she had just scratches and a little fear. The accident was halfway between her mother and myself, but somehow close to one of only three relatives I have in this country. I drove all night to get her from their care and bring her home. She was resilient though. She immediately went out with her friends then came home for dinner with me.

The following week, because she didn't have a car anymore, I got the opportunity to drive her to her summer internship in DC. On the way, we stopped so she could introduce me to the special guy that she just might want to marry. After meeting - this oh so young man!- Riyah and I drove the rest of the way to DC sharing our possible futures together, until she finally fell asleep in my care.

{Post-script: Since I first wrote this story, my daughter did engaged to this young man in June 2019}