letters from a grandmother I barely knew
(on names, roots, and recognition)
Peeking above the small white flower buds on my ancestor altar is a photo of my paternal grandmother. Normally, when writing during my morning practice I’m so focused on my computer screen that I never look up after lighting the incense. Today, my gaze followed the fragrant smoke and found her eyes. We stare at one another.
Immediately, I go scrambling to look for the one letter I ever received from her. She wrote to me during a college summer break when I was living in Paris, France with a fiancé. When I received this international letter from Jamaica that was more stamps than envelope, I remember staring at the initials “A. Cooper.” She had my initials? Nowhere in the letter did she write out what the “A.” was short for, but I knew her as Ms. Lovey. Or rather, other people referred to her as Ms. Lovey. Jamaicans often have an alias that has absolutely nothing to do with their names and I keep telling myself that I must research the origins of the alias in Jamaican culture.
I grew up being called Karen in Jamaica (sometimes gyal Karen) and only learned my “birth certificate” name was Antoinette when I enrolled in school in the U.S. Karen is not my middle name either. But now Karen has become a label for white women being colonial. Still, the name holds a soft spot in my heart and my grandmother’s letter was addressed to Karen Cooper. I sit staring at my name remembering the tenderness of my childhood name before Black dignity needed a way to name racial aggression masked as fragility.
I always had a challenging time reading her letter. I think she opened the letter with “My dear Girl” but it also looks like, “My dear God.” Her handwriting asks for my full attention but I’m pretty sure she meant Girl and was not writing from a place of horror, surprise, or devotion.
The first time I met her as an adult I didn’t pay her any mind. She was a random woman sitting on her porch in a quiet town in the countryside of Jamaica. My maternal uncle stopped to share greetings with her. As we drove away he turned to me to say, “You know that was your grandmother, right?” No, I did not know. I asked that he drive back so I could give her proper greetings.
When we returned to the quiet town another day I apologized for not greeting her before. I also learned that this was the sort of town where I’m most likely related to everyone anyways. She gave me an orange from her tree as an offering. I refused to eat it and later stuffed it in my suitcase to bring back to America. I gave myself grace for the ways I wanted to hold onto something. It’s natural for roots to hold tight to any soil. That was the last time I met her.
My dear God, this morning Ms. Lovey shared her greetings again. Her hair is plaited like a little girl. Her face is unfamiliar. Before she allowed me to photograph her she put on a shirt with yellow and blue flowers. She poses on her porch with an almost smile as if to say to the stranger who is kin, “My dear Girl.”
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