My Mother's Legacy:

Born at the crossroads of Struie in Barneyside, Merty, after her mother's untimely death, was thrust into the role of caregiver for her siblings. Merty was only nine years old, and this early loss would shape the rest of her life. As she learned how to balance her needs with the needs of others, this sensitive girl was transformed into a compassionate woman who kindled a fierce determination to help others realize their fullest potential—a commitment that would often come at the expense of her own dreams.

When my grandfather was down to "the last cow of his herd,” which he used to put his children through school, Merty made a life-altering decision. She gave up her dream of a nursing career so that her younger sister could pursue that path instead. This choice was the beginning of a life of selfless devotion to others.

In 1957, while studying at Mico College to become a teacher, Merty met and married my father, Sydney Philp, a well-known accountant who once ran for Member of Parliament in Westmoreland. As the years passed, their lives blossomed. They moved to Mona Heights, one of the first middle-class enclaves in Jamaica. Merty embraced this time of familial bliss, practicing dressmaking on her Singer sewing machine and nurturing her love for gardening, a passion she would later pass on to me.

I was born in 1958, followed by my sister Judith three years later. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of Christmases spent with my mother. One year, when I was about six, I snuggled up to her, singing "The Little Drummer Boy" while she harmonized with her beautiful alto voice. Her love and attentiveness shone through in the little things, like parting my hair for Sabbath School. I remember the warmth of her hugs when she came to pick me up after the "big people's" service. At most, we'd only been separated for an hour, but for me, it felt like an eternity.

And, then, there were the books. Always the books, like David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Great Expectations –she was a great Dickens fan--that I had to read during the summer holidays before I could go out and gallivant with my friends.

Judith and I grew up in Mona with my brother, Ansel, from my father’s previous marriage, cousins, and relatives, like one uncle, who stayed with us when he was down on his luck. I didn't have a room for myself until I came to Florida. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

In 1962, Merty's commitment to helping others led her to teach at Seaward Primary in Olympic Gardens, an underserved community, where she taught the girls “homemaking skills.” As her circle of compassion grew, "Teacher Philp,” as her students called her, became a den mother for the Girl Scouts. My mother always had a soft spot for vulnerable children, and if things had gone as she had planned, I think she would have liked to have had more children.

But my mother’s life took an unexpected turn when my parents divorced. Faced with new challenges, she knew some things had to change. She went to night school (after teaching all day) and learned shorthand and typing (120 wpm!). There were many nights she came home exhausted after taking the Number 7 bus home. But her hard work paid off, and she worked as a legal secretary for one of Jamaica's top attorneys, Frank Phipps. Q.C.. But little did she know that life had a few more plot twists.

Amidst Jamaica's political unrest in the 1970s, with murders at an all-time high, Merty, who could have stayed in Jamaica like some of my aunts and uncles had done, made the heart-wrenching decision to leave her homeland on one of the "Five Flights to Miami." For a country girl born in the rolling hills of Westmoreland, who still believed in the old saying, "Howdy and tenky bruk no square,” it took some time for her to adapt to Miami's flatness and rudeness.

I still marvel at how she did it. Merty was a single woman in her fifties who started all over again in a country where she barely knew anyone. There were no more deep friendships where she could depend on her friends’ advice or a “partner draw” to buy something she’d always wanted for the house. Yet she did it. And if she had any doubts about her decision to leave Jamaica—second guessing herself--she never revealed them.

My mother stayed with my Aunt Norma in Hollywood, Florida, for a while. To gain her citizenship and to prove she wouldn’t be a “burden to American society,”—she did as many Jamaicans of the Windrush generation and before in Panama had done: she “Tun han and mek fashion."

After many attempts to work as a secretary –the employers always wanted someone younger—my mother gave in to necessity and worked as a maid at the Diplomat Hotel. I once asked her how she coped with being a secretary for an attorney appointed to the Queen's Council by the Governor General, and now she was working as a maid in a hotel.

“Work is work,” she said. "No matter how big or small or how it looks to others, you put your heart and mind into it and let God take care of the rest.”

But there must have been some times on those lonely evenings--again on a bus from Hollywood's Gold Coast--when she must have thought about all the things she'd done, the secrets she'd kept. Perhaps in those quiet moments, as the city lights flickered, she might have questioned whether she should have approached her decisions differently, especially those with my father. Were these “trials and tribulations” worth it? I can imagine her saying yes without any regrets because she sent for my sister and me a year later.

But that, too, came with a cost. Last Thanksgiving, Judith revealed that she had given up the opportunity to attend college in Jamaica so that I could come to the States. Judith said, "Mommy said we had to do this for you.”

Once I was in college, Merty finally had the chance to pursue her dreams. After her hotel shifts, she attended nursing school at night, earning her LPN license. She worked for many years, sometimes in hospice care, until her death at 62. But not before one last beautiful memory—a Christmas visit to Sanford with my wife and daughter, where she proudly showed off her new car and doted on her granddaughter with trinkets and knick-knacks-- the tiny joys that make life worthwhile.

My mother’s journey from an aspiring teacher to a legal secretary and finally to an LPN was a life of relentless tenacity. Her resolve in the face of losing her parents young, sacrificing her dreams for her sisters, dealing with the heartbreak of divorce, and starting anew in a foreign land never waned. Talk about perseverance!

Yet that perseverance also came with a price. She must have missed the soft, tender things that harden in a tough life. Many times, I heard her crying alone in her bedroom behind a closed door. But that was something I wasn’t supposed to know.

A quiet woman of faith who, like many women of her generation, never liked to talk about her personal life—she’s probably squirming in heaven right now—my mother never resented the lives that her sisters and brothers had built and was always full of praise for their accomplishments. “Nothing is ever lost,” she would often say, finding solace in their successes, especially those of my Aunt Fredericka, who sang with my mother in the church choir. Aunt Fredericka earned a master's degree in nursing, worked at Sloane Kettering, and even sang at Carnegie Hall. She showed me the playbill and photos after my mother, on a teacher’s salary, paid for my ticket to visit New York when I was twelve years old.

Who knows what my mother might have become without so many roadblocks in her life? And yet, sadly, for many Jamaican women of her generation—and perhaps even now—this is the life of constant struggle that many of my sisters face.

In moments of despair or setback, I think about my mother and what she did for me to graduate from college. You should have seen her at my graduation. Amidst the pomp and circumstance, she didn’t say much, but I saw her pride in her tears.

It was a moment that helped me through the time when I thought about giving up writing because some of my professors in graduate school had convinced me I would never be a writer.

But how could I give up telling the story of our family, my people, when she had done so much for me? No matter my challenges, her determination was my bulwark against racism and negativity. It would serve me well throughout my years as a graduate student, professor, and eventually as a chairperson in a department where I began as a tutor for students in an underserved community. It would also inform my work as a poet in telling the stories of “downpressed” Jamaicans in the diaspora when I “livicated” (as Rastafari would say) my first book of poems, Exodus, to her.

This is the story of Merty, my mother, my dragon—a woman who stands by me now—who faced life’s fires and emerged stronger every time.

P.S. If you'd like to explore more of my life and my family's story, you might enjoy these pieces:

An essay about my love of gardening, which I inherited from my mother. “The Persistence of Green”: https://vocal.media/poets/the-persistence-of-green

A haiku collection that offers a glimpse into my family and identity:“Snapshots of my Family”: https://vocal.media/poets/snapshots-of-my-family

A haiku series about the bond between my father, my son, and me: “Winter Moon”: https://vocal.media/poets/winter-moon

.