Egyptian MILF for Black Men

The most sacred titles any woman can hold in this life are wife and mother, I thought as I proudly watched my daughter Catherine stand in front of a podium and deliver her valedictory speech to the hundreds of graduates at the convocation of the Sprott Business School of Carleton University. It's a bright Sunday afternoon and the City of Ottawa, Ontario, is basking in unusually warm weather. Sitting next to me, my husband Gerald Saintil squeezed my hand gently and I smiled at him. It's going to be fine, he reassures me. Our son Gino looks on and rolls his eyes. I nod, but I can't help worrying. I'm a mother. It's what we do.

The young woman standing on the podium in her dark crimson gown is the fruit of our labor. A beautiful but unlikely blend of Haitian, Hispanic and Egyptian, that's our sweetie. From her father she got her height, and frizzy hair. She's got my gray eyes and though her skin is caramel rather than bronze like mine, people always realize we're mother and daughter when we're out together. The resemblance between us is uncanny, even though at five-foot-eight I look tiny next to my tall daughter, who played basketball and rugby at the varsity level throughout high school and university.

I look around at the crowd of parents, friends, supporters and well-wishers, smiling without quite knowing why. An older Asian lady wipes her eyes with a handkerchief, and I nod at her gently. Graduation ceremonies are always an emotional affair for the whole family. My daughter is twenty three years old and already has her MBA. How cool is that? I am practically gushing with pride as I listen to her speech. Pay attention, I remind my son Gino, and he reluctantly pries his gaze from his cell phone and stares blankly at me.

Your sister is graduating, I remind him sternly. Gino nods and sighs. There's a vacant look in his eyes as he stares ahead like a zombie. He's six-foot-one, caramel-skinned, way-haired and green-eyed, and looks somewhat older than his twenty one years. My son is bright and handsome, and honestly, the sky's the limit when it comes to his potential. Unfortunately he's a bit of an underachiever. He's changed his major three times already at the University of Ottawa. For the past few years he's been studying ecology. Hope there's a career in that for him. Catherine thanks her school, professors and classmates and exhorts them to boldly meet life's challenges while having some fun along the way. All around us, the crowd nods along, since her speech is standard graduation fare.

When she's done, Catherine twirls her cap in her hand, tosses it into the air and jumps up to catch it before bowing and stepping off the podium, to thunderous applause. She gets her sense of humor from her dad, that's for sure. I exchange a knowing look with Gerald, and he smiles sheepishly. Like father like daughter, I say with a wry grin. We stand up and clap for Catherine as she makes her way back to her seat. She exchanges high-fives with a tall dark-skinned young woman with braids, her lifelong best friend Jacqueline Bouvier, the gal next door. Not best friend, girlfriend, I correct myself mentally. Three weeks ago, Catherine dropped a bomb on her father and me when she revealed to us that she's a lesbian, and her gal pal Jacqueline is more than just a friend. We were kind of taken by surprise, to tell you the truth.

Catherine is six feet tall, lovely and very feminine, and in the past she dated guys. I still remember how she looked in her prom dress. She went to prom with a charming Lebanese Christian lad, Samuel Khalid. While an undergrad at Carleton University, she introduced us to two guys she'd dated. I have a hard time imagining my daughter forsaking relationships with men and leading a lesbian lifestyle. Initially I was taken aback but Gerald warned me that we had to respect Catherine's choices or risk losing her.

If she ever changes her mind we'll be the first to know, Gerald told me confidently. Although I was all smiles and supportive hugs with Catherine, inside I felt torn. This wasn't the life I had in mind for my daughter. Even though same-sex marriage has been legal in Canada for a while, crimes against gay people persist. Last week I read something in the Ottawa Sun newspaper about a bisexual man shot to death by his gay lover when the spurned guy found out he had a wife and daughter stashed away in the suburbs. A bizarre love triangle that turned deadly, it would seem.

I just don't want by baby to suffer any pain or discrimination, I told Gerald at the end of our discussion about Catherine's shocking revelation of her sexual orientation. We raised her strong, Gerald told me, hugging me tightly and reassuring me that everything would be alright, as he always did. I am always thankful for his strength, his ability to be optimistic in the face of adversity and uncertainty. Gerald has the ability to see the silver lining on even the darkest of circumstances. It's just part of who he is. My darling hubby. He is and always will be my rock. I can always count on him, I've known this for twenty five years now.

It's on this very campus that Gerald and I met, twenty five years ago. Oh, snap. Silly me, I almost forgot to introduce myself. Forgive me. As you can imagine, today is a very emotional day for me. My name is Marianne Zaghloul and I was born in the City of Abu Kabir, Egypt, to a Coptic Christian family. I lived in Egypt for the first half of my life. In 1987, at the age of eighteen, I moved with my parents, Elias and Odessa Zaghloul to the City of Ottawa, Ontario. Tensions between the Muslim majority and the Coptic Christian minority were on the verge of exploding. My parents feared that the Muslims would once more declare war on Arab Christians. Given that the Lebanese Christians were fighting a war against the Lebanese Muslims and their Syrian allies in Lebanon, we couldn't go over there. So we opted for Canada, the one place on Earth that will always be dear to the hearts of refugees. Fortunately, they accepted our refugee claim.

In September 1988, I enrolled at Carleton University to study accounting. I've always had a head for numbers. While walking around the campus library I met the man destined to be my lover, my husband, my other half and my soul mate. A twenty-year-old Haitian immigrant named Gerald Saintil, whose parents sent him to live in Ottawa after he'd gotten in trouble with some roughnecks in Montreal. In hindsight, it's extremely unlikely that we even met. If it weren't for the Muslim/Christian clash in Egypt, my family and I never would have left, for we loved our country. If it weren't for Gerald's immaturity, he never would have come to Carleton for higher education. Not when there are so many schools in Montreal where he grew up.

Gerald intended to study at McGill University but he flunked out of Canada's most prestigious school due to his constant partying, drinking and womanizing. I was the shy bookworm whom he gravitated to. To say that we came from different worlds would be an understatement. Gerald was born on the island of Haiti to a Haitian mother and Hispanic father. His parents, Leonardo Valdez and Geraldine Saintil moved to Montreal, Quebec, when he was younger. Six-foot-three, with light brown skin, curly Black hair and light brown eyes, he was handsome, brawny and fearless.

This womanizer was used to having his way with women and he set his sights on me. Little did he know that I'm the woman destined to tame his wild ways. From the onset when he began flirting with me at school, I made it clear to him that I wasn't like his other hoochies. I'm an Arab woman. No man may approach me unless he's confident, and with serious intention. Trust me on that one. One thing all Arabs have in common, whether we're Christian, Muslim, Druze or whatever, we're protective of our women. Even though Egyptian Christian families are far more liberal than their Muslim counterparts, I couldn't leave the house wearing a short skirt or drink alcohol like the other girls I befriended at school. My parents would kill me if I did. I dressed in jeans and tight but long-sleeved T-shirts mostly, often wearing hats or tying my hair in a bun when I left the house. My way of looking hot without crossing the line into whorish.

Since he wasn't the type to be easily discouraged, Gerald pursued me doggedly. He practically begged me to have coffee with him, or go to the movies. Finally I relented. I agreed to go see a movie with him, provided he behave. We saw Coming To America the same week it came out, and this marked the beginning of two things, my fascination with all things African-American and comedic, and my romance with Gerald. After the movie, we walked all over Ottawa together, and grabbed a bite at a nice little Italian bistro in the south end. During dinner, Gerald sang to me, unafraid to embarrass himself in front of the assembled patrons, who found it charming, as did I. At the end of our date, I went home with a smile on my face and a song in my heart. This lad was something else!

That's how it all began. Our road together wouldn't always be this smooth, of course. Gerald and I come from different worlds, as I said before. He's Afro-Caribbean and I'm Egyptian. He's a Roman Catholic and I was brought up in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. I wear a stylized Coptic cross everywhere I go, the one Gerald had resembled something a rapper would wear. It kind of looked like bling, rather than a religious symbol. Yeah, we were very different. And don't even get me started on our parents.

My parents are conservative to the point of being uptight, and Gerald's parents were way too liberal. They let him smoke, date and drive when he was still in high school! And don't even get me started on the fact that he's of partial African descent on his mother's side. My parents initially had a problem with it. In the Arab world, a lot of the men marry women of other races but it's a rare Arab family that will let their daughters marry non-Arabs. For an Arab woman to marry a Black man is practically unheard of. There's a lot of racism in the great Arab community, it's one of our dirtiest secrets.

Gerald and I had to take a stand against racism for the sake of our love for each other. It wasn't easy. My parents threatened me with violence when I refused to abandon Gerald. I moved out of our house in Orleans and into a small apartment in Vanier with Gerald. I got a job at a coffee shop downtown to help pay for rent. Thankfully, I had qualified for the Ontario province's student financial aid program as soon as I became a permanent resident of Canada.

I stayed in school, and in spite of everything else I had going on, I excelled at my accounting courses. I graduated from Carleton with my bachelor's degree in accounting three years later, and Gerald got his criminal justice degree from Carleton University before joining the Ontario Provincial Police. Gerald and I forged ahead in those heady, dark days, and our love grew stronger. We got married in 1990. Our daughter Catherine came into the world that year, followed by her brother Gino a couple of years later. In time, my parents came around and nowadays, they fawn over Catherine and Gino like all grandparents should.

I am pulled out of my reverie by Gino, who tugs at my arm. I look up, and realize that the ceremony is concluding. People are starting to get up, the grads are hugging their parents, and each other. Catherine makes her way toward us, flanked by Jacqueline, whose parents, Raymond and Jessica Bouvier are nearby. I hug Catherine fiercely, and look into her eyes. I love you, I tell my daughter with tears in my eyes. Catherine hugs me, then hugs Gerald and Gino. Her girlfriend Jacqueline is nearby, hugging her parents. I wonder if they're taking the news as well as we are. Apparently so, for Raymond, Jacqueline's father, asks us to take a picture together. I look at Gerald, who smiles and shrugs. Both families are all smiles as we take the picture, then we exchange pleasantries for a bit before going our separate ways.

We're in the car, driving back to our house in Barrhaven and Catherine can't stop talking about her future plans. I want to work in the States, she says. Although I flash her an encouraging smile, inside I shudder. I don't want my daughter to move so far away. There are plenty of jobs in Ottawa, Edmonton, Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Quebec City and Halifax. Catherine is beautiful, educated and fluent in both French and English. She should have no problem finding work anywhere in Canada. As Gerald offers Catherine some words of wisdom concerning her future plans, a shout from Gino catches us all by surprise. The car grinds to a halt on the 417 highway. Luckily there were no cars near us, traffic is pretty much dead on a Sunday afternoon.

Gerald asks Gino what his problem is as Catherine looks on. I look at Gino in the rear view mirror. There's an expression on my son's face I'll never forget. I'm leaving Ottawa for Calgary next month, Gino says. The look of shock on Gerald and Catherine's faces pretty much mirrors the one on my own, that's for sure. Gino shakes his head as Gerald asks him to reconsider what he's doing. In a bold voice, he asks us to let him speak. At this point, he's got our undivided attention. Well, everyone except mine's, since I'm driving and all. Still, I'm all ears. Why is he behaving this way?

Gino takes a deep breath, then continues. In a loud, clear voice, he tells us that he's always wanted out of Ottawa, and out of our family because he's always played second fiddle to Catherine. When he says that, Catherine gently touches his shoulder and shakes her head. Gino shrinks from her, then once more intones his resolve. I want to work in the oil and gas industry, he says passionately. I listen attentively, dismayed by what I'm hearing. Without telling anyone, Gino has been talking to a corporation in Calgary. I've got enough credits from Ottawa University for my bachelor's degree in ecology so I'll be fine, Gino says flatly. I can see tears in his eyes and my heart winces. In the passenger's seat, Gerald shakes his head. I briefly take my eyes off the road and tell my son that I respect his decision. I don't know who was more shocked, Gino or myself.

As we pull into the driveway, we are greeted by Gerald's parents, my folks and some friends of the family. There are balloons all over the front lawn, and we are greeted joyfully by my father, Grandpa Elias, and the family dog, a lovely Black and White mutt named Dakota. We hurry inside, and everyone is ready to chant happy graduation when Catherine silences them. This day isn't just about me it's also about my brother who is my biggest supporter, she says. Gently, Catherine links her arm with Gino's, who is clearly surprised. As Gerald and I and everyone else looked on, Catherine thanks her brother for being the first person to offer her unconditional support when she came out as a lesbian, and when she nearly flunked her last class. Brother and sister share a hug, and the whole family cheers.

I make my way to my son and daughter, and hug them both. I look into my son's eyes, and he is crying tears of joy, as am I. Gino's the only son I'll ever have and I've never truly understood him. He's always been different from his father, his sister and me. While we're academically driven intellectuals, he's a more laidback kind of guy. He loves his comic books, and has a passion for political activism and the environment. He joined OPIRG as soon as he enrolled in university. He is who he is. Just because he's our son doesn't make him a Xerox copy of Gerald and me. Our son is his own man.

I realize now that Gerald and I have been pushing Gino this way and that because we felt we knew what was best for him. Clearly we were wrong. It's his life, and he's got to follow his own path. All I can do as his mother is love and support him. I'm behind you one hundred percent, I say as I kiss him on the cheek. Gino grins. Gerald joins us, and rubs Gino's head, before putting a fedora on it. What is that for? Gino asks, grinning. For Calgary, Gerald says to his smiling son, before leading us to the dining room table where a sumptuous feast of Egyptian and Haitian dishes await. After this memorable, emotional day, we're all famished. Time to celebrate our changing times and the new beginnings they bring, for all of us.