The Story of My Life so Far - Part 115 - Summer 1998: Syrille and Gaëlle in Maryland and myself in France

vcelier (74)in #story • 5 years ago (edited)

This is the story of my life so far: 69 years and counting.
Prequel: A Brief History of my Family in France

The story starts here
Previous episode: Part 114

For Christmas 1997, Madel, the biological mother of Syrille and Gaëlle, had invited them to visit her in Maryland. So, they went.
On Christmas day, neither my eldest daughters, Roseline and Betty, nor myself were willing to cook. So, for lunch we decided to go out and find a restaurant. However, as it was Christmas, most of the restaurant were closed. We only found a rather large Chinese dim sum restaurant. In there, there was only Asian people, except for a white couple that was having lunch with an Asian couple.

So, one white guy with two black girls was something that not usual for most of the people around us. After more that 10 years living with my black children I was immune to the attention we were getting, but my daughters were not really comfortable.

Madel invited again Syrille and Gaëlle to spent several weeks with her in August 1998. Because Syrille had a basket ball tournament, Gaëlle flew to Maryland several days before him.
Before he left I told him that I was a little concerned because Madel had told Gaëlle to bring a lot of clothes because she did not want to do laundry. I added that I hoped she was not doing something stupid.

In the months after the death of my sister Brigitte, the mental state of my father had deteriorated rapidly. He was forgetting things constantly and was becoming incoherent from time to time.
At one point, he disappeared for 24 hours and he was found in the train station of the city of Tours, where some of my brothers went to get him back.

After this episode, he was put in a nursing home. I was told that he was no longer able to read and to write, which for a guy that has lived for so many years for the written world, not being able to read or write was the worst that could happen.

So, in August 1998, while Syrille and Gaëlle were in Maryland with Madel, I went to France to see my father before he would lose his head for good.
With my mother, I went to visit him in his nursing home. He was able to recognize me and we had a reasonable conversation for approximately 45 minutes. I was happy to have seen him in a reasonable state.
Little did I know that this would be the last time I would see my father.

Before returning to British Columbia, I called Syrille and Gaëlle in Maryland. Syrille was evasive in the answers to my questions and gave the phone to Gaëlle. When I asked if everything was OK, she told me: