The Sound Of Love

“Yeah,” said Chantal. “I know what you mean. I am intimidated by how good he was at picking musicians. He did it like it was nothing. He had so many bands over the years but you would be hard pressed to find even one that supersedes the others. It’s just the way his mind worked. He could listen to a musician and immediately be able to tell if that musician knew what he was doing.”

“We seem to share our taste in music perfectly,” said Charles. “It makes me so happy. I have honestly never gelled with anyone so well over music, everyone tells me that I’m too picky, that I listen to music that is out of the ordinary.”

“Tell me something else about yourself,” said Chantal. “Anything at all. Tell me about your business. Tell me how you started out. You don’t have to tell me any actual details just tell me anything interesting that comes to mind.”

“Well I suppose I can tell you a little bit,” said Charles. “I started working when I was quite young. It was a paper route. I started a lemonade stand using the money that I had saved up from the paper route. It started from there, really. That was my first business. It was very successful and I’m quite proud of it. I ventured into other businesses as well. By the time I was eighteen my lemonade stands were actual stalls where people bought food. They’re still running in fact, we have around sixteen stalls in New York. That’s not my main business, of course, but I still keep it going because I’m so proud of it and because it helps so many people by providing them with adequate employment, you know? I saved up some money and bought my first apartment when I was about twenty and that was my first foray into the world of real estate. I chose to stay with my parents and saved up the rent money as well as the money from my business to buy another apartment and I kept growing from there. I started bottling my lemonade and selling it to super markets, this became my main product for a long time. I kept expanding in the food industry and real estate and these two businesses became my mainstay. I now run a lot of restaurants all over the world, several different chains in fact.”

“That’s so amazing,” said Chantal. “It’s so ballsy, you know? To have started out with a lemonade stand and to now be the owner of such a successful business. Really impressive indeed.”

“I guess,” said Charles. “I honestly felt like there was no other option. I never wanted to work for anyone. I was far too stubborn, and to be honest I was far too smart. I just kept growing my businesses until I finally got to where I am now. It’s a good place to be, and I’m ever so grateful for the fact that I’m here. What was your childhood like?”

“Not as exciting as yours, that’s for sure,” said Chantal. “I never knew my dad. He died when I was only two years old. My mom raised me on her own. She’s my hero, you know. She’s the one that I look up to, the one that I ask for advice whenever anything starts to go wrong. I guess she’s the whole reason that I became independent so early. She always encouraged me to move out and start my own life. She helped me, of course. She never just let me sink or swim. Whenever I needed help she was there for me. However, she didn’t treat me like a baby either. She never made me feel like I couldn’t do something. I really appreciated that about her, you know? I really appreciated that she was able to make me feel like anything I wanted to do was within my grasp.”

“That’s really important,” said Charles. “I honestly would not be the man I was today if I had not had my parents. They supported my inclinations towards business from the very start. They always told me that whatever I was doing was a good idea, they told me to trust my judgment. I was so young when I first started my business but they never made me feel like I was doing something I was not supposed to. They never made me feel like I was a child, to be honest. Not to say that I didn’t have a childhood, they spoiled me a lot and I was very happy. But when I took the initiative to do something that I really wanted to do they were always right there, supporting me, making me feel like every single thing I wanted to do was worth doing. That’s really important to me. I genuinely believe that I absolutely would not be the man I am today if they hadn’t supported me so much in the very beginning.”

“That sounds so wonderful,” said Chantal. “It’s so nice that you had that. It’s so nice that you had a whole family while growing up.”

“It must have been difficult for you, not having a father,” said Charles. “I mean, I don’t know what I would have done if my father had not been there. Do you have no memories of him at all?”

“None whatsoever,” said Chantal. “I have memories of him carrying me around on his shoulders, I have memories of him feeding me ice cream. He died when I was so young that I can’t really remember anything about him. I don’t think I would say that his death impacted me in any negative way. I didn’t know any better, you know? I didn’t know what I was missing out on.

“I would sometimes get jealous when I would see other kids with their dads. I would get jealous when I watched them and saw that they were having so much fun. But I had my mom, you know? I had her support, and I never felt unloved. Not once. I never felt like I was missing out on anything because my mother always made me feel like I was loved.

“I actually think that not having a father made me stronger in a way. I didn’t have him to depend on, and that made me have to do a lot of things for myself. It made me a lot more independent, that’s for sure, and that’s helping me out at this stage of my life. I’m obviously not happy that my father died, who would be, right? But I’m happy about how things turned out in the end. Like you correctly guessed, I’m not a complainer. What good would that do? What purpose would that serve? All it would do is make me depressed, make me feel like I’ve missed out on something. What’s the point of feeling that way? No, it would be better to simply move on. It would be better to simply get on with things and take the life that you are given. Obviously when an injustice is done against you, you should fight against it. Definitely, you should. However, I realized a long time ago that there was nothing that I could do about the fact that my dad had died. Hence, I decided to just move on with my life instead of letting something that I couldn’t undo define how I lived.”