by Asia-Marie Charles
My great grandma only existed to me in the context of others. Her story began the day my great grandpa took her as his wife. I barely even knew her actual first name, only referring to her by the family title of ‘Mother” (never grandma, granny, mummy or ma. Just “Mother”)— a symbolization of her place. She was our family apex. Her house was our meeting grounds, her words and teachings echoed throughout generations, we, both blood and others that she happened to take under her wing, were united by her. She was “Mother” who’s been raising kids since she was a kid. She was “Mother” who never wanted us to touch her fine china figurines because she hoped to pass them down all in tact. She was “Mother” in the rocking chair that called us over during family reunions to catch up on how school was going and give advice. She was always Mother, old and wrinkly with a smile that made her eyes go small and smelt like antique femininity. Mother that couldn’t hear very well and sometimes forgot what you said or who you were but always asked questions that would make you think and talk for minutes on end.
I always sat close to her, allowing her cold hands to cup mine. People would say no matter who visited, she always asked how I was doing as well and I’ve always been eager to get to her house and snuggle on “my spot” on her couch. She didn’t speak much, mainly watched me with a look I couldn’t read, her mouth would flip from a worried frown then a quick flip to a smile.
One day, I catch the frown and finally ask, “What’s wrong Mother?”
There is a solemn depression in her gaze. The words slowly crawl out of her as words usually do. “You need to go big school, okay? Don’t let nobody tell you anything eh!”
I laugh. “I am going big school and I swear nobody gonna stop me.”
She smiles at me with the most glee I’ve seen in her in a while. Her eyes turning into little slits and her teeth showing. There’s a childish cheekiness to her. “And you gonna go far and wide too right? All over the world. I wanted to go too you know but I had babies so you betta come back and show me!” There is a sing-song tune in her voice. The type you hear from a child when they get asked what they want to be when they grow up.
I look at her again, the playful glint in her eyes and parts of her skin that seemed to be discoloured from sunburns. Mother didn’t seem like Mother anymore. The wrinkles in her skin draw patterns that take me back to memories that were off handedly tossed about — never by Mother but always about Mother. A time before I was even a thought in this world.
Jean is a little girl on a little island in the Caribbean called Trinidad. It’s the 40s, two decades before the country will become independent but she doesn’t have that time to think about that. Although she is only barely on the lines of teenage hood at age thirteen, she has four other children to help take care of. She’s a quiet child who doesn’t see the point in complaining because she knows the Lord will handle any worries so when her Ma asked her to help out around the house and with her siblings, there was never a hesitation in her mind. This selflessness extends everywhere little Jean extends her arms, so much so that people just seem to run to be embraced by them. Jean doesn’t have much money and the American soldiers that stalk around the streets and hustle the women of the country frighten her, sometimes even more than the war that rages around her. She does not want to end up like the stories of women that must fall into their lap to get a better life. Despite the gravity of things, she allows the world to feel simple and sweet when she’s dancing to the worldwide rising genre of Calypso. She hears stories of Calypsonians going over to America, England and even France, playing their music; she sometimes wonders if she can sneak into their suitcases and go with them.
She is not stupid as some assume since she never went past standard three. Jean learned beyond what she could know about the English language all from reading the Bible until the pages became worn. Jean was a smart girl, such a smart girl but in a time like this, in a place like this, the smartest thing you could do is not be too big about it. So maybe alone at night, before she blew out the candles to sleep, she looked at the moon and envisioned going far, far, far away but in the real world, little Jean did what smart girls did and settled down.
Married at fifteen, Jean becomes Jean Charles. Who is no longer a little girl but a wife and mother. Who went from taking care of her siblings to making a household of her own. But Jean is always there. She is there when the calypso music plays and when she can read things for people that can’t and see the shock on their faces at her literacy. She is there as she puts herself into a cake making course and becomes the go to cake lady of the neighborhood and beyond. She is there when she has to keep her house’s head on because her husband won’t stop drinking. She is there when she hums to the sun as she sews three dresses in one day. She is there when she smiles and her eyes go tiny. She is there when, though never ungrateful, she still looks out the window and wonders what the Earth was like beyond the seas that bind her island.
Jean is there when she holds her baby girl and insists on more for her in whatever way she can. When she watches as the culture moves on and takes new shape. As new women swarm around her and creative narratives she’s never dreamed of. And she lives to see a time when going to the far beyond is possible even if not for her, for others.
And she is there when she looks at me now and doesn’t look bitter, jealous nor regretful but instead twinkles of hope and relief dance in her eyes. So back in the real world I look at Jean with a wide smile. There are pieces I might never know, things I can never rebuild. And maybe there are things she can only just assume about me as well like why I can only shift uncomfortably and laugh awkwardly when the mention of a potential ‘boyfriend’ comes up or why I mix the pieces of clothing the way I do. But I can do what she asks now. I nod my head. “Yes, I promise, I’ll tell you everything.”
Asia-Marie Charles is an international journalism student from the Caribbean at LaGuardia. In her spare time you can find her writing, reading, watching films or [not] finishing her crochet projects.
Photograph by Aleyna Demir CC BY 2.0.
