My Life as Carrine

THE TENS

The Most Influential People In My Life

No 10

“This person had a tremendous impact in my life by simply not being an active participant.”

Carrine Lovelace

Still Waiting!

My father, as I imagine most fathers should be, was one of the most important figures of my formative years. Despite his absence in my life, he was, and to a certain extent still is, a major player in my life,

Because of the immense impact all the pain and heartache his lack of presence caused me, I must with great reluctance as I think even acknowledging the significant part he continues to play in my life gives him much more power over me than I feel is warranted, give my father the number ten spot of The Most Influential People in my Life.

During my early childhood, I never truly doubted that he loved me in his own selfish way, but the fact that he was not there on a daily basis made me doubt the importance I had in his life.

It is not admirable for a father to support his child financially, that is simply being a responsible and dutiful adult. And it is definitely not being a parent for a father to just spend summer vacations with his child, that is not parenting, that is being a camp counselor.

Both my father and mother left Haiti in the sixties. My mother eventually settled in Canada, Montreal to be precise, while my father attended medical school in France, where he stayed after finishing his residency. He ultimately accepted a post in a little town known as La Croix de Merlet in Marsas which is part of the Gironde Department and is on the outskirts of the wine regions of Bordeaux. Not only did he serve for many years as the only general practitioner in the area, he was also the only black person in town as well as in the county. [1]

My summers, from the age of five through the age of sixteen were spent with my father and my ‘stepmother’ in France, but for the exception of my twelfth year when my father and ‘stepmother’ officially married and were on a month long honeymoon.

On a side note, I did not attend the long awaited nuptials and in fact was not even aware my father was getting married until the end of the school year came and I was informed, by my mother, that my father had married and I would not be spending my summer holidays with him that year.

To say I was hurt would be an understatement of monumental proportion. I could not comprehend how a father, my father, could undertake such a step in his life without having his little girl, his only child, by his side. I tried to explain it away by saying maybe my stepmother did not want another woman’s child present on her wedding day, a reminder of his past life but to be fair, my stepmother and I got along well enough and she always treated me nicely. I called her Tati, the French version of Auntie and she called me Ma Puce which literally means My Flea, a common term of endearment in France, like the British saying My Pet. Seriously, those Europeans have a strange sense of humor!

I enjoyed myself tremendously each summer as we visited my stepmother’s extended family. They always treated me as one of their own from the very first meeting and I adopted them immediately as family calling her mother and father Mami and Papi, Grandma and Grandpa, respectively.

Every summer, my dad would take a couple of weeks off from work, and we would go visit some little country town, go to the beach or to some other part of France, never Paris mind you as it was a tourist trap during the summer that most French natives avoided like the plague. I enjoyed those little excursions and always looked forward to them each year.

I remember one year we stayed in a little “castle” for the night and looking back on it now, it was probably a manor house, but to an eight year old, it was a dream come true, well sort of, as the “castle” was dilapidated and most of the rooms were closed off. It was drafty, somber, dusty and just a little scary. But just the same, for a little while, I was living a real life fairytale: I was a real princess in a real castle with her father the King and the, of course, fairytale required wicked stepmother.

One thing I will say about my forage to France every year, it gave me a sense of freedom and confidence at a very early age. I was five years old, soon to be six when I first went to visit my father. My mother armed me with a picture of my father, frayed around the edges from my frequent handelings. It was a picture of his graduation from medical school, dressed in a pale blue, almost gray, three-piece-suit holding his rolled up diploma in one hand and his suit lapel in the other; very handsome and dignified.

That day, full of excitement but also trepidation, I hopped on a Double Deck Boeing 747 Air France Carrier in Montreal, as an unaccompanied child. Let me tell you, those planes are humongous, and to a little five year old girl flying for the first time, it was scary…for the first fifteen minutes that is, after that, it was pure unadulterated fun! I was so excited to be a “grown-up little girl” and I was truly happy to finally see my dad in person for the first time, that I could remember anyway, as I did have some pictures of my him holding me when I was a baby.

The flight was long but there were other kids traveling alone and the flight attendants, still called stewardess in those days, were very indulgent with us. We sat in first class (even though our tickets said economy); we met the pilot and got to actually go in the cockpit; we ate all the desserts and drank too much soda; we played hide and seek and tag; and when we wore ourselves out, we watched movies on the upper deck of the plane. It was a great adventure for a little girl and every year it just got better.

As I arrived at Charles de Gaulle Airport, the flight attendant escorted me to the greeting area where all the unaccompanied kids were to be picked-up. I remember holding onto her hand so tightly and looking at that worn picture of my dad hoping I would recognize him. As we went up the escalator, I looked up and my heart just jumped, there he was, my dad, all smiles and looking just like his picture, big (well not so big in those days) afro, full beard, white teeth and bright smiling eyes. I let go of the escort’s hand and went right over to him and kind of froze because it never occurred to me what I would call him. I had always referred to him as my dad but never really addressed him as dad. He seemed so imposing to me at that moment, that ‘dad’ just didn’t seem to fit him.

I remember he bent down and said, “Hello, you know me?” And I shyly nodded my head. He smiled and said, “Who am I?” And in true childlike fashion I shrugged my shoulders and handed him my worn around the edges picture. He took it and laughed “Yes, that’s me, your Papa.” There it was, that glorious word I had been waiting to say the whole of my five years of life. “Papa!” I exclaimed, and that moment, that glorious moment when he gave me the biggest smile, picked me up in his strong arms, swung me around, hugged me up against his heart, cheek to cheek with the sound of his booming laugh in my ears, his loving arms around me, wonderfully safe and cherished, was a perfect moment. [2]

But of course, life has a way of making perfect moments seem so hard to come by. Every summer I returned to France to see my father and every summer it got just that much harder to accept that I just would never have a full time dad. In my teenage years, my father adopted his nephew due to some family difficulties his sister was having at the time and it was decided it would be best for my cousin to go live with my dad. Why the need for an adoption, I’m not quite sure to this day, but that is what happened and for me, that was the end of the hope I secretly held onto so tightly, in the deep recesses of my young heart, that my dad would finally take a more active interest in my life; that I existed for him outside of those two or so months I spent with him in the summer.

And yet again, my father embarked on a momentous step in his life without as much as a word to me. My grandmother, my father’s mother, who spent that particular summer with us in France as she accompanied my new cousin/half brother to his new home informed me of the adoption when I was being a typical obnoxious teen and ignoring the little bugger as any normal self-centered fourteen going on fifteen year old would have. I was flabbergasted and spent the rest of the summer solemn and at times even impertinent to the point of rudeness which led to the only time my father lost his temper with me and slapped me across the face when I told him, in the heat of an argument, he could not dictate to me as he was not a ‘real’ father to me anyway.

As I stood there staring at him trying not to give my father the satisfaction of crying in front of him, and failing miserably, I screamed out, with all the rage and disappointment I had been storing up for the last ten years, the most hateful words I could think to say.

“I hate you!” And to be honest the painful truth is, I truly did at that moment and the sad thing is, I never quite stopped hating him, not really. There is still a part of me who just cannot stop resenting him and that small part of me has been festering inside of me, deep inside, where I was not even aware such destructive emotions were lurking, dictating my actions, and controlling my reactions.

Hate, a little four letter word, so commonly flung, so easily uttered, so viciously abused; an odium so powerful, once felt, once whispered, once hollered, you can never eradicate the destruction it inflicts; you can never expunge the devastation it forges in its path; you can never exonerate the person who can evoke such a deep seeded emotion in you. I hate you!

The inevitable end to our relationship happened the summer I turned sixteen, quite swiftly I’m sure for my father. Like many teenagers, I was prone to irrational rage one moment and inconsolable sadness the next. Unfortunately for my dad, he never got to acclimatize himself to my wild mood swings, and made the fatal error of not seeing me for the vulnerable and insecure young lady, who admittedly acted stubbornly brazen, I had become, and instead saw me as I was the last time we met, childlike, carefree, slightly moody but easily teased into laughter, despite the devastating scene the previous summer.

I was a very angry and confused teenager who was very adept at projecting a happy disposition when the occasion dictated and even better at acting the normal, well adjusted slightly temperamental but wholesome teenager everyone expected me to be. I did not know how to express the troubles and pains I was experiencing and furthermore would not have known who to trust enough to confide in, even if I had suddenly found the courage to voice my sorrows.

Don’t get me wrong, I did have people in my life who loved me with no reservations and who would have just about done anything for me, I knew that then and I still believe that now. The problem is, when you are in the middle of such distress, you cannot seem to stop panicking and blaming yourself long enough to realize you have recourse, you have support, you have help, if only you just ask for it.

In my childlike view of my father, I always believed he would rescue me. I always believed he would sense my heartache and mend it. I always believed he would never let me suffer. So I waited in silence for him to save me. I waited until there was nothing left of me to salvage but a broken empty shell where once a hopeful innocent little girl was.

It is such a deep aching wound to your soul the day you realize your dad in not who you need him to be. A dad is supposed to protect you; shelter you; guide you; and always, a dad is supposed to love you and cherish you. A dad is supposed to make you feel like the most precious jewel in the world. That is what a dad is supposed to do for his little girl. Not abandon her to others; not rely on others to do his duty; not trust others to take care of his little girl.

My dad did that to me, made me feel like I was less than nothing. Like I was not worthy of his time. Not good enough for him, so he found a replacement. Not smart enough for him, so he never invested in me. Not special enough for him, so he never sacrificed for me. Not important enough for him; just never enough for him!

When you grow up feeling that way, you desperately try to find something or someone to make you feel all those things you want to feel: loved, cherished, appreciated, and wanted. Sometimes you get lucky and find it in healthy extra-curricular activities like sport, music and art. Other times, you go looking for it through other people and find a mentor who will guide you out of your black hole and teach you how to be an emotionally healthy person. And sometimes, the wrong kind of person takes notice and offers you what you think you need and you are so starved for affection and attention, you take it.

You take it, even when you know to the depth of your soul it’s wrong, you take it anyway. You take it because it makes you feel good for just a split second in time. Just for a second, you get to feel that perfect moment again.

Then you wake up twenty odd years later, and you still have a hole in the middle of your heart. Your soul still has a big empty space you never managed to fill. You still cannot seem to make that little girl inside of you feel cherished. No matter how many great people have come into your life since, you still feel empty in that unfulfilled space in your soul where that little girl still waits for her dad to say, “I love you, I cherish you…come, I’ll protect you, everything will be okay. You’re with your Papa now…”

Papa, I’m still waiting!

Written by Carrine Lovelace

THE TENS: The Most Influential Person in My Life, No10

[1] This information is given in good faith from my memories and knowledge obtained as a child but the veracity of the information is close enough as to be factual for the purpose of this story.

[2] All conversation was in French but I will write it in English for convenience sake.

THE BEAUTY OF UGLY

LOOK PAST THE SHINY PACKAGE through to the real core of a person.

You will oftentimes find such a priceless gem hidden behind the thick walls of sarcasm and belligerence people tend to use to hide their true self from the harm thoughtless vain people inflict.

LOOK PAST THE SHINY PACKAGE through to the real core of a person.

Words flung so carelessly around by selfish people can cause deep lasting wounds to a fragile heart. As you cluelessly hang onto every word uttered by your idol with a glassy worshipful gaze, a once bright soul changed into an angry person

LOOK PAST THE SHINY PACKAGE through to the real core of a person.

Actions so demeaning and disrespectful to others go unnoticed by people used to getting their own way by any and all means, even at the detriment of others, friend or foe, are the reason damaged souls build barriers around themselves until all you see is the ugly.

LOOK PAST THE SHINY PACKAGE through to the real core of a person.

You may find that the sparkling jewel you have admired so obsessively is nothing more than camouflaged coal and all there is under the surface is a deep void where a dark soul resides.

LOOK PAST THE SHINY PACKAGE through to the real core of a person and you shall discover THE BEAUTY OF UGLY.

Wisdom to Nonsense by Lacey Written by Carrine Lovelace

Did Ugly Betty Really Need a Makeover? (bellasugar.com)
Weingarten: Phyllis Diller embraced the ugly (newsday.com)
Never. (babyiadoreyou.wordpress.com)

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

I hide myself in shame

When I know my heart is honorable

I hide myself in hatred

When I know my body is sacred

I hide myself in silence

When I know my soul is pure

I hide myself in fear

When I know my spirit is free

I hide myself in darkness

When I know my essence is light

Written by Carrine Lovelace

Related articles

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

LOVE UNPREDICTABLE

Sitting here by the phone

Gazing at pictures from good times gone

Reminiscing on merrier times past

Wishing desperately happy times could last

Alas prayers whispered go answered

Dreams of togetherness unrecognized

Hopes of better tomorrows unheard

Forever after love never realized

Deepest sorrows fills my spaces with emptiness

As anger turns my spirit powerless

Accusation and blame shouted with bitterness

Keeps my body frigid in loneliness

Suffocating guilt shrouds my soul in darkness

As overwhelming guilt encase my heart in sadness

Lust so fleeting a sensation

Passion so strong an expression

Wantonness such hallow a reaction

Love so lasting an emotion

How can I survive such harrowing ardor

To once again feel with unreserve fervor

When all I have lived of life’s uncertainties

Have always lead me to love’s unpredictabilities

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Related articles

Rate this:

Share this:

Like this:

Follow “My Life as Carrine”