Dafney

At twelve, I had left the only family, friends, and home I knew behind in Haiti for the last time. Standing in LaGuardia Airport, I was overwhelmed, overwhelmed with the diverse faces of all colors zooming past me, stairs that moved on their own, and an infinite number of lights that stubbornly made the night bright. For a young girl who only knew Haiti in the 1980s, it was all so magical.

And standing there, for the first time in my life, I saw my father in person, who had come to pick me up. He was a skinny man in shorts and sandals, who stood out as harshly ordinary against all the magic of America.

Growing up with him, however, was miserable. A new and exciting city enchanted me, but he kept me locked inside the apartment for the most part when I wasn't at school to keep me out of trouble. I spent countless hours staring out the living room window, watching the city live without me down below.

After years of living locked inside, I finally blew up. I told him how much I wanted to be anywhere else, how much I missed my friends in Haiti, how much I wanted control over my own life, how much I wanted to be anywhere else but there, and how much I wanted to be with my "real parents." Years later, he told me how he would never forget those words for as long as he lived.

I moved in with my aunt in Indianapolis shortly after that, in non-speaking terms with my father.  After finishing high school, I got into childcare. I learned that it was not just about caring for children but also working with their parents and their parent-child relationships.

And it hit me just how different parents in Indiana were compared to my dad. They cared about their kids' extra-curricular activities. They made sure to spend quality time bonding or playing with their kids. They outwardly showed lots of affection and attention. On the other hand, my father was cold, strict, and uninterested in my personal life, other than making sure I did well at school.

I also realized, however, that these parents in Indiana didn't have to go through what my father did.

They didn't have to live in fear of persecution from the Tonton Macoute, a murderous secret police force under Haiti's dictatorial regimes in the 70s and 80s.

They didn't have to miss their first child's birth and leave their homeland to give their future kid a fighting chance at a better future.

They didn't have to ride on rickety boats across the Caribbean like contraband.

They didn't have to grapple with the possibility that they might never see their family or children again if the risky gamble of coming to America didn't work out.

Several years after our big fight, I invited my dad to see the first house I bought on my own. After a thorough inspection and lots of tutting of disapproval from my father about how this or that should be fixed or replaced, my husband, dad, and I all gathered in a circle in the empty living room. My dad began to sing Haitian songs and led a prayer to bless the house.

With his eyes closed, he spoke to God. "God, please protect her from the envious, protect her from evil, and bring more positivity and joy into her life. God, I am so proud of my daughter."

In that blank canvas of a living room, I saw a beautiful future with my family, including my father, where we could heal from the traumas we carried from the past and across the sea. I wiped tears from my eyes and knew that this magical foreign land and that ordinary stranger I called my father finally felt like home.