Oneal Harewood would be the first to state that, in many instances, he and his girlfriend Danielle Depradine are opposites.
She has an outgoing personality; he could be a bit cynical, by his own admission.
Danielle was comfortable being the subject of the camera’s lens, having modelled and participated in pageants. Oneal was not a fan of photo shoots.
“We are total opposites, but as they say, opposites attract. I made her a promise a long time ago that whatever happened, we would still be together,” he said last Monday afternoon.
And perhaps one of their biggest differences was the one which mattered the least – Danielle is hearing impaired; Oneal is not.
But they are more than willing to share a strong love for each other and their adorable seven-month-old son, Aiden Harewood. At several points in the interview, Oneal pauses to catch her up on the conversation via sign language, as she holds their son, who happily coos away or tries to make a meal of the desk.
The co-habiting couple has been together for seven years after meeting on social networking site du jour, Hi5. He was 19 at the time and Danielle was 17 and a student of the Irving Wilson School.
“At the time I don’t think I even knew what hearing impaired meant . . . . I had known a friend of hers but we never met either, so I didn’t know what it was like to speak to a hearing impaired person,” the 26-year-old remembered.
“[Even after] she told me it wasn’t anything, until I actually saw her and was interacting with her.”
They met face to face for the first time at the Fairchild Street Bus Terminal before Danielle headed off to school. The meet-ups continued for a while, and cellphone text messaging was their main mode of communication. Once Danielle finished school, her now departed mother would take her to the beach to meet Oneal so the two could spend the day together.
“In the beginning her mum wasn’t a fan of me and I [understood] because she had a hearing impaired daughter and she wanted the best for her and [she didn’t] want someone to take advantage of her . . . ,” he recalled.
“. . . As the years developed, her mum grew fond of me. It was an achievement on my part . . . ,” Oneal continued with a smile.
The relationship also served as impetus for Oneal to learn sign language, although Danielle can lip-read. Embarking on the parenting phase of their relationship “was no different than anything else”. But as the time for Aiden’s arrival drew closer, Oneal wanted to make sure he could take care of his small family financially.
“I had already been dismissed from Almond [due to its impending closure], so the concern was where I could get some work that was stable enough, seeing that I had a kid on the way. I bounced around a bit until Turtle [Beach] gave me a call.” He is now employed there as a junior store keeper.
“ . . . There were concerns when I was not there and I was working late shift how it would be for her if he cried during the night. She lost a lot of sleep because of this. In the beginning she would have slept with him. Every time he moved, she would wake up. [As he got older] during the night she would wake up periodically to check on him.”
As for his parenting style, the former Lodge School student encouraged his son to “explore his surroundings” and practised a bit of tough love whenever Aiden tripped or tumbled.
“She is more the loving, caring person while I on the other hand would look at him and say: ‘he is fine’ unless he starts bursting out in tears.”
He also wished that one of the differences he shared with Danielle was one he shared with his son.
“I wasn’t concerned about if he was going to be deaf . . . . If he was, it would give them more of a bond, and when he grows up she would have someone to constantly talk with . . . ,” he said frankly.
“If he has something he wants to talk about he would yell for me first but I wanted her to have that priority.”