Lanny Davidson and his daughter are making up for lost time. - Contributed
Paul H. Williams, Gleaner Writer
The Men's Crisis Centre is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation that offers counselling, advice and assistance to men, who, of course, are in crisis. It is connected to Men in Action, a group which takes fatherhood into their own hands. But, the man who started it did not do so merely out of philanthropy. He himself was a man in crisis, who moved out of his home to seek refuge with friends, when he thought his "safety was in danger".
"When I started my business and I left the company I was working for, I had to start working very late at nights and everything, and accusations started that maybe is not work I gone to, is woman yard, and these things really upset you that you working so hard to try to support your family and all you getting are these insults and accusations in return, and bottles were thrown at me at times, in anger, because of my ex-wife having a short temper.
"It got a little worse until I decided that this is not the kind of life I would want to live. I thought perhaps that my safety was in danger, so I decided to move out," Lanny Davidson said, in explaining the separation and subsequentdivorce from his wife, and his fight to be with his daughter.
Verbal insults
The breakdown of his marriage to a raven-haired East Indian beauty started with the "usual man-and-woman argument over problem, money and other things. There was some fighting ... not fist-fighting, but a lot of verbal insults being hurled back and forth."
Shortly after Lanny moved out, his wife voluntarily brought their son to him, but kept their very young daughter in a western parish where the family lived. After one year, when she realised that Lanny was not going back home, she attempted to regain custody by taking him to court. The court ruled that the boy stay with his father, in St. Andrew, since he was doing well academically and emotionally. His wife, however, got legal custody of their daughter.
"I eventually went back to court when she was four and ready to start school, because I thought I had a better chance, and even then it didn't work out. They didn't give me custody."
Having failed to get possession of his daughter, he fell into temporary bouts of depression, because he felt he was the one to protect her from the "ills of society". Lanny recollected: "I would wonder if she is safe, what is she eating now, where is she, if she is comfortable where she is now .. I had visitation and all that, it wasn't as often as I would wish."
Losing his daughter
Subsequently, his wife refused to let him visit his daughter, and hid her from him. He had to go to Family Court to have the visitations enforced. He was to get her half of every holiday and every other weekend.
"That went on for a few months to a year, and then some bitterness developed again, and I was denied visitation. I went back to court again, and the judge and anybody would not listen to me, they would not even enforce their own visitation order," he said.
Lanny eventually lost contact with his daughter for nearly four years, not knowing where she was and what school she was going to. All this while, he was in communication with his ex-wife, but she refused to divulge her whereabouts.
Lanny worried and fretted night and day, wondering whether she was overseas with strangers. Her safety was his major concern.
"Well eventually, I just learn to let go, enuh," he said. This was after seeking counselling, and advice from his church elders. He was told to focus on raising his son, and in time he would get to see his daughter. Nevertheless, he was intent on finding her. His efforts were futile, and he "eventually just gave up".
Continuing the search for his daughter was not the only thing he gave up on. He fell in arrears with the court-ordered maintenance for his daughter, because he "was demotivated from paying it and actually started to withhold it". He said he fell back on payments because the business was not doing well, the bills were piling up, and he could not see his daughter. Well, the law would have none of it, and he was locked up for "a few hours". This, he said, shook him up and taught him a lesson.
Somehow, Lanny learned that his daughter was back in the west, and had gone back to her former school, so he set out to find her. "My son and I went to the school to try and find her, and the first trip we made we didn't find her because the teachers lied to us and told us that she didn't go to that school anymore, and they didn't know where she was and they even threatened to call the police on me, so I gave up, and went back a few months later with new information that she indeed was going to that school, and this time we found her."
He subsequently learned that she was sent to be with her maternal grandmother in central Jamaica.
At the school, they were allowed to see her, but Lanny's daughter did not recognise him as she did her brother. Nevertheless, it was a happy occasion.
Lanny Davidson's son, like his sister, is a mountain biker. The siblings' relationship has grown since their reunion. - Contributed
"She didn't know who I was, (but) it was a grand reunion to see my two kids hugging again; it brought tears to my eyes," he reminisced. This meeting was the first of many, and he started to make the long cross-country trip regularly to bring her money and supplies. Even if he didn't make the trip, he would find a way of getting things to her.
However, the initial visits were not what he had hoped for. The visits were supervised by the school's guidance counsellor, in her office, which deprived father and daughter of privacy. This was until she felt it was safe and Lanny "didn't come to tief the child". They were eventually left alone, and father and daughter embarked upon the long, all-important process of bonding. The relationship between Lanny and his ex-wife also improved somewhat.
"It got a little bit more civilised," he said. And the one between their children got "tight, tight". "Oh yes, man! They are very close, very close man, information that they share together, I (don't get it)," Lanny declared proudly.
But his pride was further boosted summer last year, when one day, his daughter called Lanny and asked him whether she could come to live with him, and he quickly said yes. Her mom had decided to let her go since that was what she wanted. Lanny went into a tailspin, and all the preparations for her arrival were done in a day.
His voice effused excitement as he said, "She called me in the morning and by the afternoon I was down at Tinson Pen, and the first flight the next morning she was in Kingston."
During this time, he waited in trepidation, having doubts and wondering whether it was a set-up. It was wasn't, and when he saw her disembarking the aeroplane, he realised that dreams do come true.
He is now basking in the glow of fatherhood, more than ever.
"It's every father's dream, even if he's not with the mother, to still be the protector of his children, especially the daughter. This is NOT to say we must leave out the sons, these days are terrible for boys too," Lanny said.
For his children, heconcluded, "We all wish our children to have a better childhood than ours, we all wish for our children to have a better adulthood than ours, and a better life, and that is my dream ... and if they can do without the drama, then all the better."
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