I Love You
January 24, 2012
“We are shaped and fashioned by what we love” Goethe
On January 6th, 2012 the strongest woman I know left this world. There isn’t a memory of my life that she wasn’t apart of. She helped raised all of her grandchildren. She used to comb my hair, walk me to school, take me to the market, make me anything I wanted to eat. The list goes on. My life in Trinidad is filled with her. She came to New York and I had the opportunity to take care of her. Nurse her thru open heart surgeries and blood infections. I gave her a part of me as she did for me when I was younger. My mama gave everything for her family.
I admire this woman more than anything I can write on this page or share with the world. Mama taught me more than I could of ever taught her. She struggled all of her life when her mother died young, step mother decided to not send her to school, she married young and lived thru the typical abuse of an arranged marriage. Husband died in 1979. All these years she asked why Mr. D left her to struggle. I say it’s because he knew she was strong enough to live without him. She was strong enough to see us all grow up and to give us an unspoken love. She rarely said I love you but I never once felt it wasn’t there. I never knew my grandfathers. They all passed before I was born but I knew this woman. And for that I am grateful the world let me have her in my life. She will continue to shape my life and if I am so grateful to have children one day I could only hope I can do for them what she has done for me.
Mama gave her life for her family. She slaved and worked and did the best she could. Uneducated, could hardly read and write but managed to keep a household together. The love I have for her will be timeless and endless but will never amount to what she gave to me. I will carry her in my soul and forever in my heart.
While I sit on this plane, traveling back to Trinidad, 9 days, after I watched over her funeral and it still hasn’t sunk in yet. She’s gone. She’s my connection to Trinidad, to South, to Timital, Penal, and to a history only she held. I will miss her.
As I remember her – strong, willful, unapologetic and most of giving.
