I knew I was leaving Jamaica.

I didn’t know exactly what America would be. I didn’t know how long I would be gone. I didn’t know when I would see my grandmother again. But I knew enough to understand that this visit mattered.

Before I left, I traveled from Waterhouse in Kingston to Montego Bay to see her one last time.

Looking back, it seems like an awful lot of responsibility for an eleven-year-old. At the time, it just felt like something I needed to do.

I remember being excited when I arrived. I had written ahead to tell my grandmother I was coming, so she was expecting me at some point. When I finally showed up, she was thrilled to see me.

Then she looked me over.

The first thing she noticed was how skinny I was.

Years later, I would tell my aunts that I weighed 120 pounds before I came to America. I remember the number because there was a man in Kingston who charged a few dollars to stand on a scale and find out your weight. I stepped on, and he told me I was 120 pounds.

I was eleven years old, five foot nine, and living in Waterhouse.

Whether that number was technically normal or not has never mattered much to me. What I remember is being hungry. I remember food being limited. I remember my grandmother taking one look at me and deciding I was too thin.

I also remember not bringing enough clothes.

My mother was already living in America, and I was preparing to join her. Somehow, in all the planning, I arrived in Montego Bay without enough clothing for my stay.

My grandmother had a solution.

She opened a barrel containing clothes that had belonged to my aunt before she passed away.

My aunt had lost a lot of weight before her death. I was tall and painfully skinny. The dresses fit.

One by one, my grandmother pulled them out and handed them to me.

There was nothing sentimental about the process. At least not on the surface.

I needed clothes.

The clothes were there.

Problem solved.

That was how my grandmother loved people.

Not with speeches.

Not with dramatic declarations.

With practical solutions.

Feed the child.

Find her clothes.

Make sure she has what she needs before she leaves.

Only now, looking back decades later, do I realize what was happening.

I wasn’t just visiting Montego Bay.

I was saying goodbye.

I was spending time with one of the people who loved me most before I stepped into a completely different life.

And somewhere in that memory is a barrel of dresses, a grandmother who was happy to see me, and an eleven-year-old girl who had no idea how much she would miss Jamaica once she was gone.