Tamarind candy and pigtails

"There once was a girl born on a sunny island who loved tamarind candy, and danced to beat of her heart..."

And often, that girl still dances to the beat of her heart even when she almost can't hear it.

1978 - I see Grandma Bent bend down to whisper words of goodbye to me, and hand me the little bible I still have, inscribed with: "Jesus loves the little children" and other words of blessing from she and Grandpa Bent. I see the sunshine streaming through the airport windows, and I feel that I'm losing SOMETHING, but I don't know what.
I'm going SOMEWHERE, but I don't know where.
I feel the lump in my throat even now, and I can see myself hanging my head in a lack of understanding and a lack of agreement with this shift, but no choice in the matter.
There won't be anymore trips to the airport to eat pepper shrimp and watch planes take off with Auntie Lucy.
No more cherries off of Grandma Bent's tree or going to church with Grandpa Bent.
There won't be anymore waking up to the smell of eggs frying in Grandma Mills' kitchen, or hearing her call my baby bother "Bright Eyes!" in the same voice my mother uses with her grandson today. "Jaaaaaacks'n!" she calls, "Come, Sweet Boy"...Grandma Mills lives on.

There won't be anymore being everyone's baby girl...the first child, grandchild, niece or nephew in the same way I was prior to that day.

And so we take off for Tulsa, where Daddy went to college, to plant ourselves, Jamaicans in a foreign land that will only in part become "home" for me.

At least part of me takes off...The rest is home in Jamaica, waving goodbye as the other half of me disappears into the clouds.
I come, and I begin this life of duality few understand. I straddle two worlds, two mindsets, two sensibilities, listening to two voices.
Jamaica comes into my conversation daily...it lives in my heart and mind constantly, and I am jealous. Jealous of those who still have their accents, when mine left me without my permission.  For THAT voice says WHO you are and WHAT you are...What does mine say?

Sad that I didn't grow up creating the memories my cousins share with each other from "home."

Unsure still that I have a right to say, "I am Jamaican" when I left at three...But I say it anyway!

I'm not yet sure why this was the design...part of me left ashore on the sunny island I love more than my own life, longing...part of me here, still a foreigner to this day, staring 40 in the eyes, always looking back at my "patria" as they say in Spanish...my homeland.

Even now, even to this day, that little me with little pigtails, still stands where I left her on a sunny shore, looking and longing for me to come back and join her in the sunshine, dancing to the beat of our heart, and eating tamarind candy...

"There once was a girl born on a sunny island, who loved tamarind candy, and danced to the beat of her heart..."