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My love Corrina never met Wolfman Jack, never knew him, much like her father. I was only her Daddy for four years before it was time for me to go. The very first time I ever heard that song, I thought Corrina was the most lovely sounding name I've ever heard and vowed if I ever had a daughter her name would be Corrina. Another song at the time was "Love Is Strange" and if you weren't around but saw the Movie "Dirty Dancing" you will certainly remember it. Well love is strange, because even ten years after Ray Peterson's "Corrina, Corrina" I was a Credit Manager for a Finance Company in Toronto, Ont., Canada, 27, alone with $4.00 left until payday. I had a choice. I could get a meal, or I could loose myself in a movie for a few hours. I made my choice. As I got up to leave, stepping into the isle, a little four year old angel/munchkin, the most beautiful child I had ever seen stood looking up at me with an expression of someone who was mesmerized on the one hand but not sure if I was whoever she thought I was. Her dad had to walk back, take her hand and walk her out into the lobby. I knew right then and there that little girl was the daughter I would never have. Thank Providence I was wrong, because when Corrina was between three and four years old; I would die rather than admit she did not look exactly, and to this day as memory serves, I mean "exactly" like that little dream I met in a Toronto movie theatre eight years before she was born. On the day she was born, she was placed into my arms for a few moments by a delivery nurse scarce minutes after her short birth. As a privileged member of a fraternity known only to the nursing profession who really run things; I was attached by the heart strings. One of the hardest things about her, that I cherish the most, was one day when she was outside our ground level apartment sliding doors this little one stood terrified and screaming with blood running out of her mouth. She had smashed her face into the playground bars and had made in almost all the way back on her own. Her father, the guy who had long taught first aid, attended many multiple fatalities, did the Coroners' Photography when our own landlord fell into a municipal incinerator; her dad froze, totally helpless, totally useless. Corrina's mother, bless her, was a pediatric charge nurse and bolted by me as a bear to her cub. Mary had Corry up to the kitchen sink where a little water, and a little love and attention smoothed all but the shame I feel even today 24 years later. That was not the last time I would betray her, however. After the separation and divorce I was not willing to use the children as pawns for power and control. I offered to keep them for six months of the year or if their mother was unfit or unwilling I'd look after them full time. There was no way their mother wanted that and she didn't want any further visitations as both Corry and her brother Ricky were not happy and not doing well.
I remarried, this time to a Psychologist (My Mother Always Wanted Me To Marry A Doctor--joke.) and I was bound, dead and determined to get it right. Once and for all, I thought, I'd find out what women really wanted. She told me that one day my daughter would have a fight with her mother about not letting her wear lipstick or something and there would be a knock on our door. Not to worry she said. She'll find you. Shortly after I left my daughter, I sent her a poem about the incident mentioned above and thanked her for showing me my weaknesses. I told her of a Bobby Darin song entitled "18 Yellow Roses"; how it was a story about a father who answers the door one day to find a deliveryman with 18 Yellow Roses sent to his daughter. The father is faced with learning that she really isn't his little girl any more and there is a new man in her life. He has to say goodbye to that relationship and all that it has meant. I promised Corry that on her 18th Birthday I'd send her 18 Yellow Roses as my way of saying goodbye to that little girl. A promise I kept. The CFJR manager in Brockville, Ont. was told the same story I told you and she was able to give me a "dub" of Bobby Darin's song which I sent her so she'd be able to listen to the lyrics and understand more clearly what I was trying to convey. A year later for her 19 birthday, her boyfriend phoned me to ask if he could bring her to meet me. They spent three hours and she seemed reluctant on the one hand to leave and suggested they could return, but never did. After the death of my second wife, and after my strokes I tried again to set up Sunday Conference calls on the last Sunday of each month so all three of us could chat but that fell through as well. The odd letter arrives with grandkids pictures and the odd bit of news, which is appreciated, but not quite a hug. I've done my genetic duty, and I've fathered two people who are contributing to our land, and I have loved them. I just wasn't very good at it. A father yes, but I was only their Dad for four and fives years respectively. It takes more than that. It takes more than 18 Yellow Roses.
Last Updated 01/06/2000 10:58:18 -0230 |
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