That woman had fled from Iran in order to escape religious persecution. She and her family did not care to honor Islamic traditions. She did not want to see her daughters forced to don a head covering.
By the same token, that woman did not hope to see her daughters growing up in Pakistani. Single life in Pakistan also held no appeal for that mother. She herself soon welcomed the arrival in Pakistan of her husband. She then focused on whether or not her daughters would grow up in Pakistan.
That woman thus contacted her relatives in the United States. In the summer of 1986, she and her family boarded a plane scheduled to fly to the west coast of the continental U.S. There the woman’s two daughters met the sons of their mother’s cousin.
Unlike Pakistan, the United States did not encourage the wedding of cousins. For that reason, the 1986 arrival of that refugee family only served as a farewell to Pakistan. Single life in the United States could, in the future, replace an imagined single life in Pakistan.
Yet the woman who had been a refugee did not worry about U.S. dating. Pakistan had had such severe restrictions that dating couples there could barely get to know each other. That would certainly not be the case in the United States. In America, a date gave single adults an excellent chance to learn about someone who they saw as attractive.
Within the United States there were other women who had once called themselves a Pakistani single. Those women had enjoyed the freedom to date who they wanted in the United States. Those women had thus found a suitable mate. The former refugee hoped that her own daughters would experience the same good fortune.
That mother was then unconcerned about her young son’s future partner. Because he was the youngest of her three children, that mother felt it premature to worry about whom her son might choose to marry. The mother did not then know how her son might one day look at marriage.
The mother did not realize that she and her husband would remain together for less than five years. She did not foresee the extent to which her son might question the wisdom of pursuing marriage. She did not expect to see the day when her son would choose to remain single.
Twenty years later, when that same woman longed to see her son show interest in a steady girlfriend, she also consoled herself with this thought: All three of her children would be free to date whomever they wanted. That freedom should help them to find someone with whom they could be compatible.
The woman who had crossed mountains to escape from Iran hoped that her efforts would ultimately help her children to find a suitable mate. That woman looked forward to the day when she could care for her grandchildren. Perhaps she would even live to attend the wedding of one or more grandchild.