I'd lost the love of my life and felt like life wasn't worth living. And then along came Fate, forcibly reminding me through tragedy that one should never take one's loved ones for granted. You never know when you might lose them. My name is Yasmin Hussein, and I'm a young Somali-Canadian Muslim woman living in the City of Ottawa, Ontario. What I'm about to tell you is a true tale of love and loss, tragedy and triumph. A dark day in the history of Ottawa, and a fateful day in my personal life.
My Haitian boyfriend Steve Salomon and I were feuding because he thought I could never accept him for being a Christian. Never mind that I'd broken one of Islam's most sacred rules by sharing my body and my heart with this charming, infuriating young man from another faith. Steve had lost faith in our relationship and I was heartbroken over losing him. After all we'd been through together, it seemed that our relationship was doomed. Unless a miracle happened, or something.
On October 22, 2014, a day that will live in infamy in the minds of Canadians far and wide, I was in a Tim Horton's near the Ottawa library downtown, sipping coffee while trying really hard not to think about losing the love of my life. Try as I might, Steve Salomon's soulful brown eyes and fearless smile haunted my thoughts. Damn the Haitian bozo for capturing my heart and then shattering it into a trillion pieces. Damn Steve to hell for seducing me, rocking my world, forcing him to choose between him and my Islamic faith, and then discarding me anyway after I chose him.
I sat there, looking at my iPhone, wishing Steve Salomon would get over that infamous Haitian pride of his and call me, his Somali sweetheart. As if he'd get over himself that easily. I had gone to class at Algonquin College earlier and decided to duck out early. Thus I found myself in downtown Ottawa, Metcalfe Street to be exact, a heartbeat away from Parliament Hill, when The Event happened. I was sipping my coffee when I heard shots fired, and panic gripped everyone inside the coffee shop. What in hell was going on?
Later, I would find out that a crazy white guy from Quebec who converted to Islam decided to launch a one-man attack on Parliament Hill, and he left a courageous Canadian soldier dead before he was taken out by the authorities while storming the halls of Parliament itself. I'm glad the Canadian authorities took out this creep. Nutcases like him give Islam a bad name. I saw more police cars than I ever thought possible that day. Like everyone else, I was huddled someplace supposedly safe while all of downtown Ottawa was on lockdown, per orders of the Mayor and the Chief of Police. Doesn't get more official than that.
You got no idea what it felt like, trapped inside that little coffee shop downtown, surrounded by panicked and paranoid strangers. All of whom were looking at me funny because, well, when there's rumors about a terrorist attack, people always look at the Muslims. We're the first ones on everybody's list of suspects. And as a Hijab-wearing Somali gal who happened to be drinking coffee and eating an egg sandwich in the coffee shop that day, I was Muslim with a capital M.
Later, when things calmed down and the police finished clearing the bloc and started letting people go home, I boarded the first bus heading to the east end from Mackenzie King Bridge, across from the Rideau Center. I grabbed the 95 bus and rode it to Saint Laurent Station, then decided to walk to the home that Steve and I shared in Vanier. I'd been staying at my friend Ayaan's place near Baseline Station since Steve Salomon and I split. Now, though, after the day I had, I wanted to go to the only place that ever truly felt like home.
I walked through the Saint Laurent Mall, and walked toward Donald Street. I was starting to relax somewhat, for this area of Vanier is full of Arabs and Somalis, my people. There's a mosque near the end of the street, and it's right next to a Lebanese Christian church. Who says Muslims and Christians can't get along? I was about a hundred meters from the Masjid and the Arab Christian church, walking up that hill, when I got accosted by a pair of gangly white guys. Although barely out of their teens, they glared at me with an age-old hatred in their blue eyes.
Terrorist bitch, one of them, a tall white dude with red hair, said angrily. He spat on the ground, and took a menacing step toward me. His buddy flanked me, blocking my escape. Even though I was outnumbered, a woman alone against a pair of racist bozos, I refused to bow my head or surrender. I am a proud Muslim woman and this means that I bow down only to Allah, the one true God. I looked at the two racist white dudes defiantly, and told them to go to Hell. I braced myself for what was to come. I'm a tall, curvy young woman and I've got some strength in me. If these two creeps thought I'd go down easily, then they definitely picked on the wrong woman.
Right before the two creeps could pounce on me, a loud masculine voice called them out. I looked up, and guess who I saw? Big and tall, dark-skinned, masculine and roughly handsome. A presence as uplifting as the sun clearing through dark clouds, bathing the world in its light. My chocolate prince. My Haitian king. My sweetheart Steve Salomon. Except that was nothing sweet about him as he told the two skinny white dudes that he would break their necks if they laid a hand on me.
