Doing Whatever It Takes

M hopped on a flight at 4am, showed up on my doorstep 3 hours later, and proposed. To say it was unexpected is an understatement. But my answer was quick. I loved him, and I wanted to spend the rest of my life with him - I just hadn't know that was an option. 

But apparently M knew more than I do. We can talk about courage and intentions another time. Most of all, I guess he knew his family. Or maybe not - maybe he just had faith in his family. He had faith that everything would be okay if he told them he wanted to marry this gori.

We had known each other for a year and two months. His parents didn't know ANYthing about me. They had no idea that their son was spending so much time with a gori girl. Sometimes in situations like these, there is an information leak. Someone - a family member or friend - who knows about the desi guy hanging out too closely with a gori or whatever somehow lets the family in on it. That didn't happen in our case for a couple of reasons. First, M is the only member of his family who was in America at that time. He also didn't live anywhere near any of the few cousins and uncles he has that were in America - so they didn't know. Second, none of his friends were the type to do that sort of thing - they were all graduate students, none of whom he'd known before he came to America; and third, to some extent there is some acceptance and/or avoidance of the desi guy "getting it out of his system." "Oh yeah, you know some of these desi guys lose their heads when they get here. Start getting friendly with the white girls. Eventually he'll figure out what's right"

Whatever the reason - now he'd proposed but his family still had no idea. Because they didn't know, there hadn't been any histrionics about straightening him out - no threats or bribes or carrying on about trying to change his mind. But I didn't know if these things were coming. I knew there was no way he was going to go against his family. If they said they would disown him, or his mother cried or carried on, or threatened to commit suicide. (Yep. That happens sometimes.) I didn't know how he would react. Just in case, though, I wasn't going to tell my family about our engagement until I knew he'd told his.

His mother had actually asked him a few times since he'd graduated and gotten a job if he'd like her to start looking for a suitable girl. He'd refused every offer, and she hadn't pressured him too much. So she asked him again one day - would he like her to start looking? He again refused, and she asked him - is there anyone there you have in mind? M seized his opportunity, but not wanting to look too eager said something like... "Oh...hmm....maybe I can look around here. There are some pretty good girls here, maybe I'll get back to you..."

My mother in law is nobody's fool. She saw right through that and demanded to know who it was. M hemmed and hawwed and tried to convince his mother that he wasn't talking about any particular girl, but my mother in law basically ended the conversation with "I know there is a girl. I'm sure you already have pictures of her on your computer. Send me a picture, now."

So? He did! He emailed a picture of me to his parents and his three siblings who were waiting anxiously thousands of miles away. WITHOUT telling them anything about the girl who would be IN the picture! 

What a shock that must have been. I mean, couldn't he have told them something to deaden the shock a little bit? I mean, they had NO IDEA previously that there was any possibility of something like this. Their precious eldest son, studying abroad - never been in any trouble, never given them any trouble at all, the best of students, working on his Ph.D, studying so hard he SURELY didn't have any time for a social life, and then if he did have extra time, he had all those nice Pakistani boys he was so close with! 

I've written elsewhere about how my mother in law's reaction really made my whole introduction to the family something greater than I could have ever imagined. But sometimes I am struck by the role that M played. Sure, he was the reason all this happened - the apex in the triangle, so to speak. But if he hadn't had the courage to do what he knew was right for him - for us - and the faith to know it would all work out in the end, we might not be here now. Faith in his family, faith in me, even faith in himself. 

When I told him I wasn't going to tell my family until his had given their blessing, he didn't seem worried. He just kept telling me that he would be able to convince his parents. In the end, his parents told him that he'd never made a bad decision and they trusted his decision in picking me as his wife. But how did he know it would work out that way? Of course, I don't think he did know. He might not have even thought that far ahead very often. But he had faith. And he was willing to do whatever it took to satisfy his parents.