Teeba Furat Marlowe’s Story Inspires

It could have been fate or it might have been faith. The day Barbara Marlowe first saw the haunting photo of Teeba Furat would change both of their lives forever.

Marlowe was reading the Sunday Plain Dealer on July 16, 2006 when she came across the story of Teeba Furat Fadhil, a 19-month-old Iraqi girl who had been riding in a taxi with her father and brother when a roadside bomb blew up the car. Teeba’s face, scalp and hands were severely burned and her brother Yousif was killed. While gazing at Teeba’s photo in her Concord Township home, Marlowe had a transformative experience.

“Everything blacked out around me,” she says. “Her eyes mesmerized me…they looked so sad. I was not cognizant of anything else around me. But I knew I had to email the correspondent who had written the story.”

Amazingly, one year to the day later, Teeba arrived in Cleveland to begin a series of operations at University Hospitals Rainbow Babies & Children’s Hospital. Marlowe and her husband Tim took in Teeba, whose inspirational story is told in A Brave Face (W Publishing Group). Marlowe and Teeba, now a sophomore at Gilmour Academy, wrote the book together, along with Cleveland Magazine contributor Jennifer Keirn, who authored a 2010 story about Teeba. The book chronicles the pain and joy shared by two families living a world apart. 

We talked with Marlowe about writing the book, Teeba’s journey to America and her unique relationship with Teeba's birth mother.

Why did the two of you decide to write this book?
One of the things that was important to us was to show two families who have never asked each other what their politics was or what their faith was. These were two cultures that couldn’t have been more opposite of each other and yet none of it mattered. People have the same desires everywhere…we just both love Teeba so much that it transcends everything else.

How difficult was it to navigate all the red tape it took to bring Teeba to Cleveland?
Naively, I thought that it would be easy. I had no idea how to navigate the system. First I reached out to Wigs for Kids and then I contacted Rainbow Babies & Children’s and the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund. It was very, very difficult to get her here. One day I was screaming at God — Why aren’t you helping me? And I found a golf ball marker that said “God Loves You” in our driveway. I knew at that moment everything was going to be okay.

How close are you to Teeba’s birth mother Dunia?
She is my hero. She lost her son and then lost her daughter to me in this country. Leaving a daughter in the hands of a family she had never met required an enormous amount of trust and faith. Last August I had an operation and when I came out of surgery I said that I had been with Dunia in Iraq. Within the same 48-hour period Dunia had also been in the hospital and the first thing out of her mouth was that she felt I was with her.