For the first time in 6 months, I had 20 minutes to see Muhammeds face today... Now, as a Muslim couple, we highly value not posting pictures of each other online, or talking too much about personal details with the public...That being said, this whole experience of sharing our story for justice and to raise awareness for others is already extremely personal... Its crazy to think its been half a year since I could look at Muhammed. For a couple who are close like twins, its been a long six months. All for what? An emotional Chief of Detentions of an Immigration Holding Centre who decided that while Muhammed was at his facility, hed be a bully, and thats exactly what this man is. He knows Muhammed is stronger than him and Im sure he goes home and thinks about Muhammed too. How can a government ever put a property people dont chose to be in as private property? Its not right. It took over 7 hours of traveling today. No wonder most lawyers wont even go there in their own transportation. Seeing Muhammed in bright orange walk up from the block hes in, with two other men coming to visit their women (one woman brought her toddler and the other was 5 months pregnant with baby #5, whos husband is being removed Monday to Nigeria, but like us women do, we smile and keep moving while our hearts ache), I could see him smiling at me from far. Then glass between us and a phone to talk, we waited patiently for the phone to start working for its 20 minute countdown. He had a pencil and a paper with him of course. It was honestly too overwhelming to even say much, and the 20 minutes flew by. He looks older, tired, like hes somewhere strange, but he still looks steady, focused and more handsome. He looks like he has new stories. His eyes are different, but he kept smiling at me and his eyes never dried up. We exchanged some man and woman talk (regardless of the guard listening), both did a stand and turn, and he took the lead after he felt my silence and reminded us that inshAllah, we will have a long life together, and this is only a small part of it. I just dont feel like I can be broken. Its crazy that you get to go home he said, and I reminded him there is no home while youre here, and then I kissed my hand and sent it to him and it was over. And then a well loved man with no charges, and no convictions followed direction back to his locked down cell. Then us three women left, walked down a long hall, to the elevator, smiled at each other without making eye contact, went through security, got our things from our assigned locker, turned in our visitor badge and locker key, got our ID back and headed for the trip back to Toronto. No noise except some Christmas jingles on the radio and the occasional text message tone. No woman knows this feeling unless youve been through it. SubhanAllah.
Posted on: Fri, 29 Nov 2013 00:13:41 +0000
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