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Russell Howard's avatar

I love my dad so much. NOBODY in this world has been as loyal to me as my father, & I'll never ever forget that. He's never betrayed me, & that says alot. My dad is salt of the earth, & I'll be doing my best to follow his example until I die. I really miss his dad too. I was in absolute awe of my grandfather for very good reasons--the man projected the best energy. My son & I are in debt to our paternal ancestors, & we have alot to live up to. It woukd destroy me to lose his blessing. My world would be upside down.

josick croyal's avatar

When I was a young boy, newly enrolled in school, I was in love with a little girl at the private Catholic school. Her name, Désilles, meant "from the island." My father, holding my mother close, then lectured me (I must have been about seven years old): he forbade me from loving this girl, telling me there were many other girls I could love. I never showed anything about it again, but I secretly carried this love in my heart for years.

When I arrived in Mindanao, greeted by a married Frenchman living there, I didn't want to hear anything about women. Then I fell (at first sight) madly in love with the daughter of the Frenchman's baby's nanny. This nanny was there to welcome me when I first set foot on Mindanao. Like my father when I was a child, this Frenchman forbade me from loving this island girl, the daughter of his employees. Like my father, he told me there were plenty of other girls I could be interested in. I wasn't seven anymore, so I ignored him. We've been together for over 15 years now. I'm in my 70s, and she's 32 years younger than me!

josick croyal's avatar

I never planned anything because nothing worked out for me. I was ostracized as soon as I got my agricultural engineering degree, a degree named after my father. I have children, but my wife has completely stripped me of my parental authority, cutting off all contact with them. I saw online that my daughter studied political science and was president of the student association. She worked as a parliamentary assistant and now works in artificial intelligence in Paris. My son is apparently a marine robotics engineer.

I refused to accept this Solomon-like fate, leaving France for Mindanao in the Philippines (with a return ticket to Hong Kong), where I stayed for two and a half years. I arrived with a genuine fake passport (issued by the Prefecture) that listed Josick instead of Joseph. I had a daughter, Josicka, born on my 55th birthday, a July 10th mother like my own mother (Josicka: the little girl she would have loved to have instead of me). Then, 22 months later, as with my other children with whom I've no contact for 16 years, a son; son now blossomed, showing an interest in flowers and plants, creating a garden.

Upon returning from the Philippines, I worked as a cowherd on my cousin Pascal's family farm. This continued until I could no longer walk, at which point I was officially recognized as disabled! How can one exist when one is not recognized by one's family, a family that is nonetheless very devout, a family that refuses to let me earn money?

josick croyal's avatar

What a load of nonsense: on my wedding day, my father told me I had just destroyed everything he had built, choosing his wife in church... etc. Two manipulators, all for themselves, and who also hate men. My father was rejected at birth by his mother, who was portrayed as the Mother of God, because she later had a daughter on December 25th (1931-2026), Christmas Day, a daughter, a little Jesus without a penis, who, unlike my father, received an education and social recognition by becoming a nun and philosophy professor. My father was put to work on the farm at 11, marrying at 25, my mother replacing her mother on the farm, my father wanting to recreate the sacred story on the farm. So I was born the one sacrificed, declared Joseph like my father but called Josick, without any social standing.

My grandmother, the Mother of God, then had a second daughter, born fatherless (as if she had been pregnant by the Holy Spirit). A year after my birth, this father's younger sister, whom he married the same day (two weddings on the same day), gave birth to my cousin Pascal on Easter Sunday itself, during the Easter High Mass. He thus represents the resurrected Christ managing the family farms, while I represent the sacrificed Christ, unofficially living officially in a farm building once reserved for the farm's draft horses.

I therefore needed to understand the true workings of this sacred story, to discover its essence!