In The Beginning...

My greatest fear was that she would be forgotten. I guilted myself for not being able to remember little things. In moments I would test myself, jog my memory, if I felt like I couldn’t remember - I immediately felt guilty. How can I, of all people, not know…not remember? But memories, good memories, bad memories, they aren’t forced. They are fluid. But that’s what gave rise to the idea behind Datsy’s Girls. This woman, my mother, she was too great, too amazing to fade into a memory. She left us, still having so much more to give, and as her daughter I needed to see that through.

Part of the grieving and healing process was and is acceptance. I acknowledge that I cannot go back and change anything, but I can move forward and impact, and impact in a meaningful way. As I started to unpack my mother’s closet, I knew I couldn’t just donate not knowing where her belongings would end up. I do not cope well with open-endings, so I knew that if her belongings were to go somewhere it would go somewhere and have purpose. My mother lived a life of purpose and that wasn’t going to end simply because she was not physically present.

I kept thinking how after years (partially my fault) of not going back to Jamaica as a family, we finally went back in July 2016 and it was there, during her homecoming that she first felt the pain that would lead her to her lung cancer diagnosis. My mother, had to go home, and be surrounded by her ancestors for her body to acknowledge this illness.

There is meaning in everything and I know that homecoming was significant for her. With that same acknowledgment, I knew that it would only be right that her clothing, her shoes, that they find purpose again in her home, in Jamaica. That is how Teen Challenge Jamaica was selected as the first organization to receive a donation, this donation is my mother’s donation, Datsys’s donation, and just as she lived her life with purpose and passion, these items of hers will find purpose once again.