To The One Who Has Lived Before

ıı

to the one who loved Jamaica

How old were you?

I know you must have been nine or ten, but I cannot remember clearly. Did you turn ten in America? You couldn't have, but you must have.

You were a year younger than your fifth grade peers. They were all ten, so you must have been nine. But didn't your grandmother arrange a birthday party before you left?

How old were you?

None of that matters now. You were still but a child when you left. You left your whole family in Jamaica to live with the one you missed so much. I wonder if it was really worth it now; living in America has been like trying to wade through the river when its current flows the opposite direction. Your mother wanted it just as bad as you did -- you cried when you were first denied a visa at the embassy. Your love for a woman you barely remembered was so overflowing and abundant that you wanted to leave. You didn't know how low you'd kneel, you didn't know how far you'd fall.

You left the beaches of Negril for the coasts of California. You never liked how cold the water was, and you wished you could just bounce around in the water like you could in St. Elizabeth and Margaritaville. You couldn't just jump in like you used to -- not that you could swim anyway. You always missed that about your old home.

You missed too many things about home.

You missed the mornings that smelled of hibiscus and fried dumplings. You missed the trips to the patty store after school. You missed learning and playing with your friends near the enchanted trees whose roots flowed in and out of the ground like serpents. You missed the Anansi stories -- do you remember the stories of the trickster spider? You missed the legends, the books, the novels. You missed the birthday presents, the cakes from the shop near the market, the running around with your dog and your older cousin.

Do you remember Jahmar? Uncle Gary?

Uncle Andrew was his father, but he's been spending more time with Uncle Gary. He was more of a father to Jahmar than the former ever will be. Uncle Gary was your beloved -- maybe the one you missed the most. He was the one who drove you places. He made silly jokes that made you laugh and roll your eyes, but you still appreciated him all the same. He loved you like a daughter. He was the father you needed when the one who helped create you wasn't there.

The Jahmar you knew no longer exists now. When you left, he was America's equivalent of a child in middle school. The Jahmar I know is in college.

This is what haunts you now. The ghosts of the Jamaica you once loved followed you wherever you went. You couldn't stand the thought that your childhood home changed. You went back to visit in middle school, but you realized too late that things could never return to the way they were. You weren't a child anymore. You left your innocence when you left Jamaica, like a shell buried in the sands that was stolen by the waves at night. When you returned, your treasure no longer remained.

Your tears are the tropical rains that wash the land clean and leave the fresh smell on the ground like fog. Your wrath is the thunder that echoed throughout the dense emptiness of the gray skies.

Mustn't there be a rainbow after the storm?

Please don't let this ghost you. Carry it with you in your heart. Keep those memories safely tucked in your pockets. Wear them on your chest like a necklace. Hear them in the songs of Bob Marley. Sing them, and let them spill from your lips like the sweet nectar of the sugar cane.

Learn to love Jamaica again.

the one who lives now