Seize the Day was the code she lived by.

Chapter 1: “Carpe Diem.”

“Buenos Dias, Papa,” Faith whispered on a yawn to the average height man taking his place in the tiny kitchen. 

He sat crossed legged in his swimming trunks, white cotton shirt and strapped sandals ready to head to sea, dressed for his customary Sunday mornings. Always, he wore an ornate gold chain and rings of  equal value on his fingers. They were the symbols of his place in society, a place he attributed to his toiling hours welding bridges in the hot suns of South America and not to the bronzed color of his skin. He was a man of simple pleasures but gold was his investment and the only indulgence besides his wife’s fertile womb he would allow himself.   

Welding was laborers work; considered the work of indentured slaves but welding had its benefits. It paid the creditors and handsomely provided for his ever increasing family. Skilled in the malleability of molten ores, he created masterpieces of ironwork and marketed them whenever he was in between jobs.  He vowed to pass the art of manipulating iron to his sons, maintaining those skills by practicing, without fail, every sunrise. He was a man of high business acumen that cultivated the love of the trades in his sons above book smarts. He fought to get ahead of the changing times as he foresaw the era where the blacks, who populated over eighty percent of the island, would soon be in need of skilled hands.

Growing fortunes heralded by the whispers of ‘Independence, soon come’ would see the change of boarded homes and thatched roofs to steel and concrete structures with zinc roofs. It would see the change in the coming years in currency from the Pound Sterling of the mother country, England, to be replaced with something befitting of a new nation. The Jamaican Dollar that would read ‘Out of Many  One People’ would become a symbol of pride and progress for the men that were once barred from unionizing that would stir a nation to call on ‘Queen Mother.  High demands to define their identity and political maturity furthered the need for autonomy to govern.

“Buenos Dias, Fe, “he answered clearing his throat.

He smiled gratified behind the newspaper he had unfolded. For standing at the hot stove in their modernized home was his ‘Fe’, his Faith. She was testament to his faith in one day being gifted with the blessing of a daughter.  She was truly a blessing to the household of thirteen. She cooked, she cleaned, she weaned. She clipped unkempt hair, boxed ears and did the never-ending laundry but the one thing Faith did best of all her siblings was test the patience of her mother just as she  had always done and right then she was doing just that. Learning to converse in Spanish with her Father and not the standard British English her mother commanded was yet another discourse between mother and daughter.

Faith liked her coffee, just as she loved her men; strong, dark and sweet much to her mother’s prejudicial discernment. She stood straining the aromatic coffee beans from the Blue Mountain Peaks over the metallic pot. Rising before the roosters, Faith started her mornings this way when her father was home. Drinking coffee was not a thing her mother approved of and the unmentionable thought of drinking it black, for mother felt like how she felt about those people, it was intolerable.

In a household of thirteen, wasting anything was unheard of. Every scrap of clothing was passed down, re-stitched, hand washed and hung to dry in the hot Caribbean sun. Swaying gently in the breeze that smelt of fruit trees, the clothing lines in the backyard at 42 Cherry Crescent were filled with the labor of Faith’s Saturdays; for she loved her brothers and valued family above all.

 It would be considered a waste of precious coffee beans for one cup. Coffee beans that made their ways from the highest points on the island that it was rumored to have snow at its peak to the flattened City plains of Kingston, where the Rajaram’s lived. After making her father a cup of his preferred brew and sweetened with only Cane Sugar to his liking, Faith would make herself a cup in place of the more acceptable and lady like Earl Grey Tea her mother and brothers would want when they awakened. It was their secret from harping mother.  Father and daughter shared these quiet moments reading the newspaper or listening to the news on the tiny radio, sipping the steaming cups of potent caffeine before the rest of the household busting at the seams would stir.

These were moments she could only share with one of her parents and Faith’s affinity for black coffee hadn’t been the sole reason for the truncated morning; her mother was illiterate and wouldn’t appreciate the process of reading the newspaper.  Despite her own illiteracy, it was something that Ruby Marie Rajaram would never accept in any of her children.  So while father,  better known as Simeon Donald Rajaram or ‘Super Don’ as he was affectionately called by his children, cared little for educated men, he would please his first love, his wife, without fail.  So every child and Faith was no exception must learn to read, write, and be knowledgeable in arithmetic. School was not a luxury but a necessity.

Ruby , who felt ashamed of her inability to read for her station in life, a station made possible by her husband’s good fortunes, hard work ethics and fair skin color, would task Faith with laying out the paper on the arm of her favorite chair while she took her tea in the morning.  Faith would be often tasked to update her mother on the happenings of the island as Ruby narrowed her eyes at the words in pretend comprehension of the bylines and instead interpreted the pictures in the paper.

Faith marveled at her parents’ journey from the sprawling rural hills of the Parish of St. Mary to the bustling city streets of Kingston. She was even more fascinated with the love story of her paternal Grandparents and their journey from the Princely State of Kashmir, India where her grandfather was a Maharaja, a Prince and her grandmother a lowly servant girl. They were separated by a caste system that deemed her untouchable and their love immoral. The only thing she had left of her grandparents was a name;‘Rajaram’, a long line of Kings that ruled from the 1600’s to present had attached itself to her identity. The name was what he was called by for it was an inherited name, his first name.  Once he arrived in the West Indies and among the homogenous assimilation of foreigners to British rule, it quickly became, with the stroke of a pen his last name.

It was a name Faith desperately wanted to pass on to her future children so she could share with them the Shakespearean love story with the happy ever after ending she craved but society rules would not allow her. So Faith dreamt of finding a free thinker who would give her children, her name along with that of their father. 

“Fe, what do you wish for your birthday?” Super Don asked while lowering the edge of the paper to peer at his daughter who had her mother’s long straight hair, tiny frame and unique eyes of the Chinaman.   Ruby was the product of a Chinaman and an Indian indentured laborer.  The Chinaman history of Ruby’s heritage was something no one acknowledged for to Ruby she was a proud and pure Indian befitting of her husband’s royal bloodlines.

Ruby had struggled with her own journey for acceptance by a mother who resented her and a step father who wanted her out of his house. At the tender age of thirteen, Ruby birthed a daughter for another Indian man but a Madras Indian man, a child Faith’s father would later not accept in his household for her complexion was darker than the high-borne color of his parentage.  Faith knew very little of the first born child of her mother but only knew her name was Dell.

After reading the headline on the front page of the newspaper she quickly answered, “To see Princess Margaret Papa.”  

The graceful Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon and representative of the Crown would be arriving on the island to bring with her the newly signed Constitution that declared Jamaica Independent. Despite this new found independence, the Queen would remain the Head of State. The Princess would arrive for the ceremonial event at Prince George’s Park, Faith had read in the Daily Gleaner in front of her discerning eyes.  She desired to witness those eyes on a real life Princess for she believed as the descendant of royalty she must learn to act like one and what a better way than by a British Princess.

“Hmm…Princess Margaret it shall be. For a handful of bustas would be unfitting for you my sweet Fe,” her father stated sarcastically making mention to the hardened grated coconut candy she loved.

It was a candy that was named for Sir Alexander Bustamante a bushy eye browed man of European descent typical of the three percent of citizens that owned the wealth and means of production on the island while the remaining poor 97% survived on sustenance. Her father had welcomed the secession of Jamaica from the Federation of the West Indies, a cause that was championed by Sir Alexander’s cousin and political rival, Norman Manley. It was apparent the debt ridden Jamaica the wealthiest of these tiny islands in the sun that made up the Federation would quickly absorb an unmanageable financial burden from these smaller nations.  His argument was sound but not readily accepted by Faith for the reverence in the man like her candy who was known for his backbone and firmness in character did not readily agree in this cause.  Her mother’s injection in the political squabbles between Faith and her father would end abruptly.  For Ruby would clearly state that if Faith loved politics and felt the need to argue she should marry one of the Manley’s or the Bustamante’s the only non-Indian men her mother would accept for Faith. It was a sober reminder to Faith that her almost 19 years meant she must be married off and removed from the safety of the only home she knew. A prospect her father was not looking forward to for the burden of paying a dowry to another Indian Family was worrying. So he encouraged her to bat her long lashes at a European White Man. The idea of Faith marrying any man outside of those two races was incomprehensible to her parents but Faith held close to her chest a secret crush on a dark cocoa man whose name sounded regal.

“Rochester,” Faith thought to herself as the color of a pink hue as bright as the breast of the native hummingbird rose to her cheeks.

Faith was proud of her island home because on August 6, 1962 a week away her island would be only one of two former British colonies to become an emerging nation in the Western Hemisphere and she would be front and center celebrating in the achievements of her country.

“Carpe Diem,” Faith whispered out loud ignoring the approaching sounds of her mother.  Seize the day she relished; for in those words Faith believed if she lived her life without inhibition she could be in control, if only for a fleeting moment of her destiny.

A destiny she was determined to carve all on her own.