This picture was taken a year ago. It was after my second AGM as a board director, but my first as a college graduate and as an official working girl.

That day, was also a reminder of the last time I saw my dear uncle Daryl, my God-father (a year before, at my first AGM). He was sitting right beside me at that one. I was trying to convince him to go to Hellshire with me on Sunday to go get fish. And he was insisting that he couldn’t miss football. Then a couple of weeks later, after I had left Jamaica to go back to school…just like that, he was gone.

The morning this picture was taken, I was a mess. I was standing over my bathroom sink, palms pressed against the basin, gasping for air and bawling on the phone to my mother.

I was barely coherent, shaking, telling her I can’t possibly make it and that I didn’t want to go.

At the time, I was also wearing a 24hr blood pressure monitor. Which meant, now was especially not the time to be having a panic attack. But, life is often ironic like that.

I don’t remember what exactly mommy said or how I was soon throwing on some lipstick and rushing to the car, to get to the meeting, but it kind of just happened.

Finally, I had stopped crying and calmed down, but my next worry was the blood pressure machine, under my jacket. Every 45 minutes or so, it would turn on, tighten around my arm and check my pressure. I was nervous and embarrassed. What if someone heard it turn on? Then I was worried that the worrying would send up my pressure and was almost positive that the blood pressure readings for that 3-hour period would’ve been ridiculously high.

So, grieving, nervous, worried, and basically in shambles, I sat through financials, operations, sales, marketing, management and shareholders’ queries and concerns. By the grace of God, I held it together. I got through the day.

I say all of this to say

Death, is unimaginably painful. Sudden death is heartbreaking. Grief is not a three-month, six-step process. And the slightest occurrence brings back memories. There is no morning you wake up and just ‘get over it’ – It just is…

Ultimately, people go through some things and you’d never know unless they opened their mouths to tell you. Everything that glitters, is not gold. So, let’s stop being so judgemental. Be kind. Be considerate.

Everybody is really just trying to do the best they can do to make themselves happy.