On Leaving Trinidad

While in Trinidad I didn't do 98% of the things I had envisioned doing. I didn't eat breadfruit (oildown). I didn't drink coconut water everyday, like I promised myself I would. I didn't take a maxitaxi into town to explore Frederick Street and the crumbling, yet vibrant city of Port-of-Spain. I didn't drive up to my old school, Providence Girls Catholic School, to peak at a bit of my past, so that a certain part of me within could finally, at last, come full circle. No, I didn't do any of that.
I didn't eat mouth-watering mangoes or zabacas (avocados)as much as I promised myself I would. I didn't even get to go to Maracas--the beach which cradles memories from as far back as I can remember. I didn't sit and talk to my wonderful Uncle John as often as I had romanticized I would while here at home (but we did connect). I didn't call up most of the people from my past who I once feted with, worked with or even studied with. What I did do however, made up for all of this: I got to spend time with my grandmother.
What words can capture the gentle chipping away of memory from the matriarch? It is as if life, (or this disease, this disease which so far few has named in my family, few have spoken out loud) has taken as its goal to dim her once bejeweled mind, like a thief in the night.
"Like a thief in the night", was a phrase I grew up hearing my grandmother say. "Jesus will come like a thief in the night", she would say, warning all of us of the seemingly spontaneous nature of salvation through destruction.
Items constantly rearranged. Money stowed away but unable to be traced. Rosaries wrapped in socks. Handbags, unused, hidden among unworn, brand new clothes. Faces from the past sometimes greet her: Her face lights up for a brief second. But then there is a darkness, a deep grief that follows the realization of the impossibility of seeing someone who long ago, had died.
But in the midst of darkness light. A tired daughter who must assist and has graduated to the role of hero in my book. Early morning talks with my grandmother, as I lay next to her and she recalls stories from her childhood, from her deceased husband's life, as if to trace and connect themes so that she could somehow make sense of it all. In the wake of this, people's true nature is laid bare and you realize what the meaning of integrity is.
The sadness is heavy. The happy moments extraordinary. You realize that not only have you made peace with Trinidad, your family, but most of all, maybe you have finally made peace with yourself.
More later...