My grandmother came from some wealth in the West Indies. Tutor-educated, she was always teaching. Because we lived first in her house, and then, she, in my parents’ house, she was a constant in my life. She taught values from two main sources … her knowledge of bible stories and Aesop’s Fables. She taught me to write and to spell from the time I could hold a pen. I had books with the margins filled with my child scribbles.
Things weren’t always accurate on my part … I remember saying, “Shadrack, Meshack and Intobedyougo” … my spelling remained a challenge until I finally gave up after retirement. I decided I would rather seem pretentious than have to go through everything I write quickly to Americanize it. I credit my first teachers with my less than stellar penmanship. I could never understand the need to print when I already could write … I still feel the sting of the teacher who humiliated me when I was at the blackboard. My script was what my g’mother taught. Teacher looked at my Kathleen with the K looking very much like an X and said, “How do you expect to be able to write if you can’t write your own name?” As noted previously, when I began to teach, I knew what not to do to students … their job was to teach me what to do. Very few hours ever pass without my thinking of Jessie Elizabeth Bryce of Trinidad … there will always be a loneliness for her within me. I cannot speak aloud of her without tears … whatever good I have done in this world is because of the good she instilled in me. She died in life 59 years ago today … when I am gone, there will be no one to remember her so I must do so every single day for as long as I can.