More Than A Walk Down The Aisle

“Are you ready?” Raza said, as he smiled at me looking into the opened window of the black limo where I was seated and waiting before my walk down the aisle at St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral. “You look beautiful”, he said. I smiled back and asked him to come in and sit with me for a moment. I shut the door behind us and told him “I loved him”, we hugged and stepped out together. I turned behind my dress to let the train down, but somehow it nicely undone itself for me. I patted my mom’s tacky silver crystal bear pin, which I pinned on the right side of my dress and we all walked into the church.  

“I love you Raz”, I said. “I love you too, Khat”, he said and we hugged just before walking down the aisle. A father, a brother, and a best friend – that’s who he was for me that day. We walked to the beautiful melody of Canon in D, playing in high note in the background and Raza made sure to walk at my pace. Walking down, I took some glances from side to side at all our friends and family there, and some who were not there. But mostly I looked straight into the altar, the same altar I stood facing time and time again through some of my toughest of times. I looked at Anthony standing there waiting for me and my eyes exchanged a huge smile with that of my best friend Krishma.  

I wanted to cry like all brides do when they walk down the aisle. All year long, I’d play Canon in D for my own rehearsal and just imagining myself walking down the aisle would get me all emotional and teary eyed. But I didn’t, I felt great and was all smiles.  I was certain that on the day of, I’d also be in tears, just as I had during my rehearsals – especially after the year I had. But I didn’t, I think because I had been all cried out and maybe because I remember my mother telling me “ you have to walk tall, strong, and happy in front of everyone” and I couldn’t let her down, especially when she couldn’t be there, so that’s exactly what I did, as I patted the tacky silver crystal bear pin she gave me. She, along with my dad, and two out of three brothers did not attend.   

My walk down the aisle, was more than a walk down the aisle. I walked down for Fatima, who never had the chance to walk down the aisle because her family killed her in protest of her love for a man outside her village. I walked for Benazir, who walked for days with Khalid through the mountains of Afghanistan, until they finally fled crazy Afghanistan into Pakistan, and had a chance to be be together. A true Romeo and Juliet of Afghanistan. I also walked down the aisle for the likes of Farkhunda, whose story is a little different. She was brutally beaten until her last breath, by a mob she couldn't walk away from, for something she was falsely accused of.

I walked down that aisle with no tears, all smiles and I had to be even more stronger, because I was also walking for many of others and in the presence of the spirits of those who weren’t able to walk down the aisle or stand up for themselves against the injustice. Their situations were far more dangerous than mine.  

That year, during this whole thing I lost my cool 80’s Whiskey drinking dad, who now didn’t approve of my Catholic to be husband, all because of what he called religion. Somewhere between those glasses of whiskey and western movies he grew old. Not with age, but in spirit and the confusion of good and bad, right and wrong and the purpose of everything. He wanted to be so good and God loving, that he forgot to just live and love. He was just so lost and consumed by our sad and sorry Afghan community, all because of “What will people say”? 

As a child, when we were building that snow man outside our cozy Queens Apartment building, I didn’t ever think that years later my dad would disown me for the sake of “the people”.  

What a waste… we only have two days to live or my way of saying “life is short”. If only my dad knew that just a couple years later, he’d be okay with all this and also have fallen so in love with my baby boy that he would drive an hour and back just to see him. I knew it, and tried to get him to know it, but he was all too consumed by the “people”.  

We talked a lot that year, but I realized you can talk and talk all the talk, but then you finally just need to walk. Sometimes silence can be the loudest and strongest gesture, and that’s what I did. I walked that day.  

Outside the black gates of St. Patrick’s Old Cathedral was the smile of an onlooker, a homeless old man with the biggest smile I’d seen that day. I couldn’t get my gaze off him, and we exchanged smiles… it was warm and heartfelt, perhaps like that of a father and daughter. A Congratulations from a cab driver driving down Washington Square, and another congratulations from everyone on the NYC tour bus, congrats from many tourists in Washington Square park, photos and videos taken. I also learned that day, that blood is definitely not thicker than water.  

I walked hand in hand with Anthony, and my other hand patting my tacky bear pin, and although I lost my dad, I had gained a “father”. We walked out that night onto the new things in our life, and with just two days left in this world.