A Jamaican Adventure: Never Jumping for Joy Version 3
By Baron Stewart
Never Jumping for Joy I was only five when my mother left me at Palisadoes Airport—now known as Norman Manley International Airport. My tiny hands clung to her dress, my heart pounding with a fear I couldn’t yet name. I didn’t understand why she had to go, why I was being left behind. The memory of her walking away remains seared into my mind—a silhouette fading into the distance, swallowed by an airport terminal I was too young to comprehend.
Years later, I felt a similar, gut-wrenching ache when I dropped my children off at kindergarten. The forced smiles, the reassuring words hiding the quiet devastation inside—I recognized it. Only then did I understand the weight of my mother’s choice.
For my mother, the decision to leave must have been unbearable. After waiting forty years to have a child, she faced an impossible dilemma: raising me alone in Harlem while working full-time in White Plains or entrusting me to my father’s care in Kingston. She chose what she thought was safest. But a child doesn’t understand logic—only presence and absence. I didn’t understand. All I knew was that she was gone.
Standing in the dimly lit living room of Mrs. Maxwell’s house, my small body stiff with defiance, I listened as Mrs. Hinchcliff introduced this stranger as my “new mother” and this unfamiliar house as my “new home.” My birth mother was somewhere far away, and no amount of reasoning could explain why she had left me here. I locked away my grief, sealing it behind silence and rebellion—an armor that I carried for nearly forty years.
Only when my mother came to live with me in Los Angeles before her passing did I begin to glimpse the depth of her sacrifice. But even then, some wounds refused to heal.
In those early days at Mrs. Maxwell’s house, I cried endlessly, my petite frame racked with sobs that no one could soothe. I blamed Mrs. Maxwell. I blamed Mrs. Hinchcliff. I blamed everyone who wasn’t my mother. But the actual weight of my loss didn’t settle in until much later—when I unwittingly placed another soul in the same position.
That soul was a dog named Lucky.
Lucky was a lively, affectionate pup born into my home in Los Angeles. Nestled against her mother and brother in the warmth of our family, she was happy and safe until I gave her away.
My childhood friend Ronald McLean had mentioned that his ten-year-old son, Anthony, longed for a dog. I wanted to honor our lifelong friendship, so I sent Lucky to them in New York. It felt like the right thing to do—Ronald would provide her with a good home.
Preparing Lucky for her journey was bittersweet. I bathed her, took her on long walks, and gave her extra attention. On the day of her departure, I made her a special meal, brushed her coat, and took her on one last car ride—her favorite thing in the world. She wagged her tail at the airport, unaware that this was not just another adventure. Then, she was placed in a crate and taken away.
She didn’t understand.
Just as I hadn’t understood when my mother walked away from me.
The next day, Ronald called to tell me Lucky had cried all night, hiding under every bed and refusing food. Her tiny body trembled with confusion and loss. Hearing this, something deep inside me cracked open. Her heartbreak was my own, reflected in me.
A year later, I visited Ronald in New York. Lucky was well cared for, but she barked, growled, and snapped when she saw me. She remembered me—but she was angry—just as I had been when I saw my mother again after twelve years. My mother had rushed toward me at Kennedy Airport, her eyes filled with longing and guilt, but I had stood frozen, rejecting her touch, my heart hardened by years of unanswered longing.
Six months later, Ronald called again. His wife was allergic to Lucky’s fur—she had to go.
I brought her back to Los Angeles, uncertain how she would react. Would she still be angry? Would she even remember me?
When I arrived at the airport, she saw me, and instantly, her body erupted with joy. She leaped, wagging her tail wildly, covering me in kisses. She had been lost, and now she was found.
Unlike Lucky, I had never jumped for joy at my mother’s return. I had only clung to my resentment, unable to embrace what had been lost, what could never be fully restored.
My mother’s move to New York might have been the best decision for her, but for me, it was a wound that never really closed. As I grew up in Mrs. Maxwell’s Boarding House at 31 Victoria Avenue, all the children around me had mothers. I had only faded pictures and distant letters. I envied them. I wanted my mother to be the one tucking me in, keeping me safe, and making the world feel steady beneath my feet.
One of my earliest memories was Hurricane Charlie.
It was 1951. My mother, forty-four years old, and I lived in a cramped tenement yard on Bendas Lane in downtown Kingston. She shared the space with me, her four-year-old son, and Kenneth Rodgers, a twenty-four-year-old man she had raised like a son. She made her living selling food from a pushcart, working tirelessly to provide for me.
Then, the hurricane came.
On August 17, 1951, Hurricane Charlie slammed into Jamaica as a Category 4 storm. The wind howled, tearing at the flimsy zinc roofs of the tenement houses. Rain poured in through the cracks, flooding the floor. My mother and Kenneth scrambled, catching the water with pots and pans, their bodies tense with urgency.
Then, a massive mango tree crashed onto the roof.
"Put the baby on the dresser!" my mother shouted.
It was the only dry place left.
I remember the way she looked at me then—fierce, determined. I felt her love in that moment, raw and desperate. She was protecting me.
Even though I could not understand the depth of the war she waged within herself to leave me behind, as a parent, I now see it.
Her letters, the occasional phone call, and the clothes she sent for Christmas were not enough to replace her presence. And yet, looking back, I see what she endured: a sleep-in maid in White Plains during the week, a cramped room in Harlem on the weekends, a life filled with sacrifices that I only began to piece together years later.
There was a story about how she once fell asleep while cooking dinner and burned down her apartment building. She escaped unscathed, but I imagine the fear, the exhaustion, the endless struggle.
Now, I see her not as the woman who left but as the woman who survived.
And though I never jumped for joy, in my way, I came home to her love.
Reflection
Looking back now, I see that my early separation from my mother left deep imprints—ones I carried for decades, mostly in silence. I didn't trust easily. I often sought affection from women, as if I were still trying to fill the void left by that little boy at the airport, reaching for his mother’s dress. Underneath was always anger and low self-esteem, shielded by a quiet yearning to be seen, chosen, and loved without condition.
We never spoke openly about the day she left. Not once. But she knew. She could feel my unresolved resentment in the spaces between our words and how I withheld parts of myself even when she came to live with me in Los Angeles. Still, it wasn’t until I participated in a Werner Erhard and Associates seminar that I began to find the language for forgiveness. The seminar introduced me to the concept of “completion”—not erasure, not justification, but the kind of acceptance that allows healing to begin.
When I gave Lucky away, I was, unknowingly, recreating my trauma. But this time, I had the power to change the ending. I was doing for her what no one had done for me. I was empathetic. I was present. And when she came home to me—bounding, leaping, covering me in kisses—I saw the pure release of joy I had never allowed myself. In her return, something in me softened.
I often wonder if my mother ever had a moment like that—if she ever thought about my heartbreak like I thought about Lucky’s. But my mother lived in the now. She was always fighting to survive, not looking back. Reflection wasn’t something she had the luxury to indulge in. Still, I wish she had visited me—just once—in those twelve long years. It might have changed everything.
Raising my children helped me understand her choices more clearly. I saw how exhausting parenting could be, even with support. She didn’t have support. She worked as a maid in Westchester during the week and lived in a cramped Harlem room on weekends. I understand now: she made the right decision for herself. But understanding doesn’t erase the wound. Presence matters. And for a child, absence becomes its kind of trauma.
I’ve heard many stories of Harlem in the 1950s—harrowing stories, dangerous stories. Jamaica may indeed have been a safer place for me. But even if the body is secure, the heart still longs. “Doing the best you can” may satisfy the adult making the decision, but it doesn’t always meet the needs of the child who’s left behind. That is the paradox many parents silently carry.
I’ve tried to write this story for years. Technology may have made it easier, but time has made it possible. I needed to live, hurt, love, and forgive more. I’m not writing this out of grief or bitterness. I’m writing it because I want others to see what I finally saw: resilience is not just surviving the storm. It’s having the courage to revisit the wreckage, to rebuild something honest in its place.
The title, Never Jumping for Joy, still holds true. I never did. Not when she returned. Not like Lucky did for me. But before my mother died, I thanked her for being my mother. It wasn’t a grand moment. It was quiet, like healing often is. But in that moment, I came home to her love—just in time.
A Message to the Reader
Honor your childhood pain, but don’t let it harden your heart. Acknowledging the hurt and confusion you carried as a child is okay. Your story matters. But healing begins when you allow yourself to see those who hurt you not just as villains but as people—flawed, burdened, and sometimes doing the best they could with too little.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean forgetting—it means releasing. True forgiveness is not erasure. It’s not about pretending the pain didn’t happen. It’s about releasing your grip on resentment to move forward with greater freedom.
You can break the cycle. What was done to you should not be repeated. Whether with your children, your relationships, or even your pets, you can do differently to offer what you didn’t receive—and in doing so, begin to heal the past.
Resilience is not about being tough—it’s about being authentic. Real resilience isn’t a mask. It’s the courage to feel deeply, revisit old wounds, and choose compassion anyway, especially for yourself.
Ask the questions while you still can. Don’t wait too long to have the hard conversations with those who shaped your life. Silence can become its kind of inheritance. Give yourself the chance to ask, to listen, and maybe even to understand.
Let love have the last word. Even if there’s no reunion, no perfect ending—choose love as your final act. Sometimes, a quiet thank you is the loudest declaration, even if it comes at the end.