Category Global health and disparities

FMM 10 14 16 Awesome Wonder

“He who can no longer pause to stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead; his eyes are closed.”~Albert Einstein. I remember very clearly being taken by my father to see an amazing sight.  It was one of the nights on board the SS Ascania, the ship that took us to Jamaica in 1963.  […]

FMM 10 07 16 Thankful

“The essence of all beautiful art, all great art, is gratitude.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche.  I grew up in a God-fearing household.  When your father is a minister, and a seven-day-a-week-Christian, there is no escaping the religious routines and rituals.  Grace was expected before every meal, whether silently before breakfast, or out loud at the family meal.  […]

FMM 9 16 16 You Think you Know

“A part of kindness consists in loving people more than they deserve.”~Joseph Joubert. I still remember the smell of Pears Soap.  I chose to use it as the first soap used on my firstborn, associating it with purity and simplicity, a transparent oval bar that we could only find in a Jamaican store.  But I associate […]

FMM 9 9 16 Walk a Mile

“This is a wonderful planet, and it is being completely destroyed by people who have too much money and power and no empathy.”~ Alice Walker. At the age of 8 or 9, I attended a country school in the heart of Jamaica.  I was the only white girl in the school, which meant I was […]

FMM 8 26 16 Road Trip, Baby!

“We are more alike, my friends, than we are unalike”~Maya Angelou.  Before my family moved to Jamaica, our annual vacations began with a road trip.  My parents would pack up whatever old jalopy we owned (one was the ‘orange monster’!) with camping gear, supplies for a month, and five kids.  The journey was made slightly […]

FMM 8 12 16 Jamaica Sweet!

“Lovely dainty Spanish needle With your yellow flower and white, Dew bedecked and softly sleeping, Do you think of me to-night?”~ Claude McKay.   For many years, I was totally loyal to Air Jamaica.  I refused to fly on any other airline when I flew home to Jamaica.  It was not just the beautifully sleek […]

FMM 7 22 16 Sound and Fury

“Or being hated, don’t give way to hating…”~Rudyard Kipling (‘If’). My father used to hate crowded places.  He did not go happily (if he went at all) to fairs or festivals, crowds of people and loud noises.  I tend to react the same way to multiple people talking at the same time, it seems confusing […]

FMM 7 15 16 Power Positive

“Love’s in need of love today.”~Stevie Wonder. The father of my children was a complex man.  He could argue all day on a variety of topics: sports, politics, injustice, you name it.  What animated him was the history of injustice perpetrated on Africa and people of African descent world over.  He was not a fan […]

FMM 7 8 16 He Ain’t Heavy

“Each man’s joy is joy to me; each man’s grief is my own.”~Joan Baez.  When I was a child I held my (only, older) brother in high esteem.  I basically thought he was the expert on everything.  He broke my heart when he told me the truth about Santa Claus (Father Christmas in our tradition).  […]

FMM 7 1 16 Look both ways!

“People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care”~Theodore Roosevelt. Things and times have changed.  When I was no more than 7 years old, I was entrusted with an awesome responsibility: I had to travel home from school unsupervised.  This was in Manchester, a busy city in England.  Once a […]