Seeds of Self-Love

The earth beneath my bare feet was still damp from the morning dew, even as the sun began its ascent, painting the Jamaican sky with strokes of rose and gold. It was a familiar sight, one that had once filled me with a sense of belonging, a quiet promise of warmth. Now, it felt like a distant memory, a postcard from a life I no longer fully inhabited. I sat on the worn wooden steps of my grandmother’s verandah, the same steps where she had sung me lullabies and whispered stories of resilience. Her absence was a physical ache, a hollow space in the fabric of my days.

A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the mango tree, its sweet scent a bittersweet reminder of shared laughter and stolen fruit. I closed my eyes, conjuring her image – the gentle crinkles around her eyes when she smiled, the steady warmth of her hands as she braided my hair, the unwavering certainty in her voice when she told me I was loved. Her final words, a soft murmur against my ear, replayed in my mind like a cherished song: “Remember, child, you are a seed of the finest kind. Nurture yourself, and you will bloom.”

For so long, my blooming had been dependent on the sun of others’ approval, the rain of their affection. I had waited for my mother’s gaze to soften, for my father’s embrace to hold me, for the world to finally deem me worthy. But the soil of their hearts had proven barren, their watering cans empty. And with my grandmother’s passing, the only consistent sunlight I had known had been extinguished.