Le’m pa we soley la
Today's tattoo was for my uncle.
He was 85. Old enough to die, sure...but the thought of the rest of my life without him makes 85 seem impossibly young.
He was my favorite person and the summers I spent with him and my cousins in Haiti were the best days of my life. "Uncle" always seemed too distant for someone who meant so much to me, so I always called him "Papy."
I didn't leave home for days after the funeral. I didn't want to face a world without him in it. I remembered my favorite song as a child. Le'm pa we soley la. When I don't see the sunshine. Jean Michel Daudier wrote the words to express how much he missed Haiti after being forced into exile during the political unrest of the late 80s. Le'm pa we soley la mwen pa ka leve, pa ka kampe, paka mache, pa ka couri, kè'm pa content! Roughly and less poetic in English: when I don't see the sunshine, I can't get up, I can't stand up, I can't walk, I can't run, my heart is unhappy! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrJcDYY5p0E
Heavy stuff for a five year old, but I was overly sentimental and felt that Jean Michel Daudier had perfectly captured my post-summer chagrin. I missed the mangoes and the cola couronne and running around barefoot all day and getting fritaye at night and going to the moulin sur mer beach club and the non-stop music during the three days of Fête St. Claire.
My mom taught me how to use the JVC sound system in the living room and I played the record every day until it warped. When my uncle heard that my favorite record had broken, he sent me a new one from Haiti where he had the singer/songwriter autograph it with a note to his youngest fan.
When I called my sister last week to tell her I wanted to get a tattoo for Papy, she wasn't surprised. Last year, when our cousin Marline was shot and killed in Port-au-Prince, Sissy took the afternoon off work and came home with Marline's initials floating between two angel wings tattooed on her wrist. They were closer than sisters and in this small way she could keep her close.
My uncle was 85 and I am 30 and the thing I worry about most now are all of the years ahead of me. The ones where I will be missing him. Le'm pa we soley la. The song lyric would make a fine tattoo especially if I could find a sample of my uncle's handwriting for the tattoo artist to match.
I'm as sentimental an adult as I was a child, so I keep pretty much any card or letter I have ever received. I figure if someone is thoughtful enough to write me a personal note, the least I can do is archive it.
Papy and I exchanged letters between New York and Haiti whenever family members were traveling. He worked as a lawyer and civil engineer, so it's not like he didn't have better things to do. He was just the kind of person who took the time out to send letters to a five year old.
When I found the card he gave me for my first communion, Papy's name, Arsene, stood out too beautifully on the card for me to imagine getting anything else tattooed.
"Sissy what if I just got his signature?" No song lyric, no metaphor, just his name as he wrote it to me so many years ago... The artist could scan it from the card and trace it onto my foot... I thought she would say it was crazy to change a tattoo design en route to the tattoo parlor, but she agreed it would be perfect.
Sissy is one of those cool moms that takes her kids everywhere, tattoo parlors included and since my tattoo was in memory of our favorite uncle, we figured it might as well be a family affair. AJ, my 16 year old nephew, volunteered to document the event with my phone and Aiden who at 10 is technically the youngest but arguably the eldest in spirit, offered to hold my hand and tell me a story to "distract me from the pain."
Did I know that in ancient Samoa they used sharpened bone fragments to give tattoos? Aiden sometimes stays up all night watching the Discovery channel and as a result is a three-foot tall, walking, talking fact book. Did I know that The Rock is part Samoan? He might be some kind of king... That's why he has so many tattoos... Tattoos are a very important part of Samoan culture and tradition... They weren't just for decoration... They meant something...
He trailed off right as Jesus, the tattoo guy, finished the last line.
When I look at my new tattoo, I think about how some 20 years from now someone might look at my foot and ask me the meaning of these few scribbles. I'll be able to tell them about my favorite uncle Arsene who seemingly took care of every person in our family. I'll be able to tell them about the summers I spent driving through the mountains of Haiti in his Silver Grey Isuzu 4x4. I'll be able to tell them about the air mail letters he sent before I was even old enough to read.
This whole time I had been worried about the years ahead without him, but in this way I will be taking him with me every step of the way.
