09/08/2026
I STILL CRY FOR MY GRANDMA.
I AM HER, AND SHE IS ME.
It has been a decade since Grandma Dulcie transitioned from this physical realm, yet there are days when my spirit still reaches for her as though she only left yesterday.
Some days, I cry relentlessly.
Not because I believe she is gone.
But because I miss the physical manifestation of her.
I miss her voice.
Her hands.
Her laughter.
Her stories.
Her presence.
I miss being able to reach out and touch the woman whose love helped shape the very foundation of who I am.
My mother birthed me, but Grandma Dulcie was my REAL mother.
She mothered my spirit.
She nurtured my soul.
She planted seeds inside of me long before I understood that one day those seeds would become my own way of living, loving, nourishing, healing, and caring for others.
And the older I become, the more clearly I see her within myself.
I AM HER.
AND SHE IS ME.
Mama possessed one of the most remarkable memories I have ever witnessed.
She remembered people I had long forgotten.
Names.
Families.
Children.
Places.
Stories from decades before.
She carried generations inside of her mind.
She was our living archive.
Our historian.
Our storyteller.
She would say:
Mama: “Denise, you nuh memba Stanley?”
Me: “No, Mama.”
Mama: “Him even name him daughter Denise, after you.”
Me: “Mama, I’m quite sure HE remembers ME, but I don’t remember HIM.” 😂
And in true Mama fashion, she would look at me as though I was the one who needed my memory checked.
That woman remembered everything.
But now I understand that perhaps she wasn't simply remembering people.
She was preserving lineage.
Every name mattered.
Every person belonged somewhere.
Every story connected one generation to another.
Mama was serious about her story telling.
Dinner time was sacred.
We would gather around the table, and before long, Mama would begin reminiscing.
One story would become another.
One name would open the door to an entire chapter of family history.
And we would sit there laughing, listening, questioning, interrupting, and hanging onto every syllable that came from her mouth.
Mama could take us backward through time without anybody leaving the dinner table.
Those stories were more than entertainment.
They were inheritance.
And I didn't fully understand that then.
I do now.
Today, I would give almost anything to sit at that table again.
I want to hear the stories I thought I had already heard enough times.
I want the names I failed to remember.
I want the details I didn't think to write down.
I want the wisdom hidden between her jokes.
I want the stories behind the stories.
Because when an elder transitions, an entire library can transition with them.
And now there is so much I wish I could tell her.
So much I have learned about food.
Plants.
Herbs.
Nature.
Wellness.
The body.
Spirit.
Love.
Ancestry.
And life itself.
I wish I could sit beside her and say:
“Mama, guess what I know now.”
Sometimes I wonder whether she would smile at me and say, “Mi know dat already.”
Because so much of what I have spent years learning, our grandmothers simply knew.
They may not have called it holistic living.
They may not have called it herbalism.
They may not have called it ancestral wellness.
They simply lived close enough to the earth to understand her language.
And Mama taught me that language before I even realized I was learning it.
She prepared herbal teas for me.
Today, preparing herbal tea is one of my own daily rituals.
She nourished us from her kitchen.
Today, my kitchen is sacred ground to me.
She understood how to transform simple ingredients into meals that fed more than the stomach.
Today, I understand that food can carry memory, culture, love, celebration, and history.
And when you see the mouthwatering authentic dishes that I prepare and share today…
Give thanks to Grandma Dulcie.
Long before the cameras…
Long before social media…
Long before a channel…
Long before anyone knew the words Nourish With Nature… or Goddess Ange’luscious
There was Mama.
There was fire.
There was food.
There were herbs.
There were stories.
There was ancestral wisdom being practiced in ordinary everyday life.
And in her younger days?
Right about now Mama probably would have been somewhere in the backyard baking a sweet potato pudding in what looked like one gigantic galvanized baby bathtub. 😂
My Jamaicans KNOW exactly what I'm talking about.
The fire.
The coals.
The smell.
The patience.
The knowing.
No recipe app.
No digital scale.
No tutorial.
Her hands remembered what generations before her hands had already learned.
That is why I honor the kitchen.
Because kitchens like hers were classrooms.
They were apothecaries.
They were gathering places.
They were places where culture survived.
They were places where women passed down knowledge without ever calling it a lesson.
And Mama was one of my first little “guinea pigs” when I began changing the way we ate and lived.
As I became more intentional about nutrition and embraced a more holistic lifestyle, I changed the foods I prepared for us and paid closer attention to her wellness. Watching her blood pressure readings remain consistently normal became one of those early experiences that encouraged me to keep learning, studying, and listening more closely to what food and lifestyle could mean in our lives.
Even then, perhaps Mama was still teaching me.
Just in another way.
And now I understand something else:
The people who raise us do not disappear when they transition.
They move differently.
They live in our gestures.
Our instincts.
Our recipes.
Our rituals.
Our sayings.
Our laughter.
Our hands.
Our mannerisms.
Our compassion.
Our ability to nurture.
Sometimes I catch myself doing something and realize…
That was Mama.
And maybe that is what ancestral continuation really is.
Not simply remembering the people who came before us, but realizing that they are still expressing themselves through us.
I see it even in my grandson RJ.
Mama and RJ never met on this physical timeline.
Yet when he sees her photograph, he recognizes her.
He calls her by name.
And every time he does, something inside of me becomes still.
Because how do you recognize someone you have never met?
How does a child know a face he was never physically introduced to?
There are some things I don't need to explain.
Some connections belong to the spirit.
Some recognition lives deeper than memory.
Maybe the blood remembers.
Maybe the soul remembers.
Maybe the ancestors introduce themselves in ways we do not yet understand.
But when RJ looks at Mama's photograph and knows her… I simply receive it.
Give thanks.
Give thanks to Grandma Dulcie for the unconditional love she gave me.
Because I know how to love.
Deeply.
Freely.
Fully.
And I know where I learned it.
I am love because she was love.
Give thanks to her for every herbal tea she prepared.
Give thanks for every plate of food.
Give thanks for every story told around that table.
Give thanks for the laughter.
Give thanks for the nurturing.
Give thanks for the discipline.
Give thanks for the traditions.
Give thanks for the wisdom I recognized then.
And perhaps even more importantly…
give thanks for the wisdom I did not understand until years later.
Her nurturing spirit lives in me.
That gene was most definitely passed down.
But I believe it is more than genetics.
It is inheritance.
It is lineage.
It is ancestral memory.
It is a river that has been flowing through the women in my family long before it ever reached me.
And my responsibility now is to keep that river flowing.
To tell the stories.
To prepare the food.
To brew the herbs.
To nurture my family.
To remember the names.
To teach what I have learned.
To preserve what should never be forgotten.
To hand something sacred to the generations coming behind me.
Because one day, somebody may recognize me in the way they prepare a meal.
In the way they brew a cup of tea.
In the way they nurture their children.
In the way they love.
And perhaps they will realize that I never really left them either.
Mama…
I love you.
I miss you.
I miss you in ways that sometimes feel impossible to put into language.
I wish I could hug you one more time.
I wish I could sit at your table.
I wish you could tell me one more story.
I wish I could tell you everything I have learned.
But perhaps somewhere beyond what these eyes can see, you already know.
Perhaps you have been watching.
Perhaps every time I enter my kitchen, pour a cup of herbal tea, nurture someone I love, or speak your name…
you are closer than I realize.
You are in me.
Your love is in me.
Your stories are in me.
Your hands are in mine.
Your spirit travels with me.
And every time I nourish someone with love, a little piece of Grandma Dulcie continues to nourish this world.
I AM HER.
AND SHE IS ME.
Mama, come dream me again tonight.
Big Denise still has so much to tell you.
Finish this sentence: ‘I know my grandmother lives through me because_________’
And if she has transitioned, speak her name below. Let us honor the women whose love is still walking this earth through us.
