I received an amazing request!

It was a woman’s empowerment event being keynoted by none other than Sophie Gregoire Trudeau and Katie Couric along with Jean Augustine (Canada’s first black female member of parliament) and other luminaries!

Would I be interested in sharing the stage with them at the star-studded Gala event?

Of course!

I would have a short time on stage at the Gala and an hour workshop the next day at the conference.

The proceeds of the Gala were going to benefit the Because I am a Girl foundation, and I had an inkling of what I wanted to say.

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau was up first! She had a plane to catch for Washington right after the event. She was gracious and witty and charming! Everything the first lady of Canada ought to be!

I saw Katie Couric sitting a table away (my husband and I were in the second row of tables from the podium). Here’s Katie sitting beside one of the highest ranked women in the Canadian Armed forces.

Katie spoke well! With an easy demeanor, charm and humor!

And as soon as she was done, the master of ceremonies began to introduce me! Yikes! I was following Katie Couric!

I couldn’t believe it!

And when I made my way up to the podium, without thinking I said it out loud! “Omigosh! They put me right after Katie Couric!”

The whole room laughed out loud! And there, without thinking, in that moment of being human, I had them on my side.

My speech went off easily! I thought of addressing the themes of ‘because I am a girl’ and I spoke of how I had almost died as a baby, because I was a girl! At six months old, in Pakistan, in my grandfather’s house, I caught pneumonia. My grandfather would not send me to the hospital ‘because I was a girl‘. And I spoke of how my mother, just a girl of nineteen herself, had watched me get sicker and sicker, and there was nothing she could do, and how my uncle had stolen the money from my grandfather and taken me to the hospital the next day.

I talked about how my father had decided to make the difficult migration to Canada, to get his daughters opportunities they wouldn’t have in Pakistan, and how he sacrificed all his life.

As soon as I’d received the invitation a tune popped into my head. That song by Donna Summer in The First Wives Club: Sisters are Doing it for Themselves! and I started singing a few lines right there at the podium and then I told the audience but we’re not doing it for ourselves! We have our men folk here alongside us! And I gave a shout out to my husband and to the organizer of the event and to all the other men in the room!

And then I spoke of how kind Canada has been to me, that I’ve been able to make my dreams of being an award-winning author come true! And how me, a poor immigrant from Pakistan was able to get to the point where one of my books had been chosen by the New York Public Library as one of the hundred greatest children’s books in the last hundred years! And that this was the beauty of Canada! That with hard work all girls could succeed!

My five minutes were up, and as I got off the podium, telling myself “Don’t fall! Don’t fall!” the entire room, including Katie Couric stood up and applauded! A standing ovation! And then Katie came up to me right there, and hugged me and told me, “You were terrific!” and she said, “I want a copy of that book you mentioned!”

So I left a copy of Big Red Lollipop for her the next day!

For the rest of the evening and most of the next day I couldn’t go more than five steps without someone telling me how much they enjoyed my talk!

It was lovely!

And one of the most remarkable people who told me how much she’d enjoyed it was none other than Jean Austine, Canada’s first black female member of parliament!