For Grandma!

I wrote this story for my Considering Caribbean Women's Literature class during my undergrad at York University. I want to thank my professor, Althea Prince for believing in me and giving my words life. She was the first professional to take my writing seriously.

I dedicated this story then,as I do now to my grandmother Ros, and her kitchen, which along with the best cornmeal porridge I have ever tasted,  has provided much love, comfort, security and grounding. 

I was born November 8, 1974 about 11:30 in the morning at Brooklyn Jewish (now Interfaith) Hospital, in, you guessed it-Brooklyn, New York. The details of my birth and following years on the planet are somewhat hazy. Nobody can give me a complete account of why my mother and father decided to leave me with my grandmother in Brooklyn while they started a life for themselves in Canada, where I would join them about five years later but I have my suspicions. (That's another story for another day).

However, the answer for the purposes of this tale is so that my parents could get their lives in order before taking on the responsibility of  raising a young scorpio child who would have undoubtedly been acclimated to the ways of New York and possibly hard to tame. I have to admit, at 5 years old, I was pretty set in my ways. I'll never forget that dark cloud which followed (which stayed with me until I moved back to the city) as soon as I crossed the border.

You may be wondering how I could remember such vivid details of my life from such an early age.

The answer is simple: Grandma. Grandma and I had a magical  relationship then as we do now and she has told me this story so many times that it has more or less become burned into my memory, like a tatoo on the brain.