The Kitchen Where I Became

Last night, I visited a place I hadn’t stepped into in years,
but my bones remembered the floor before my feet touched it.
I was in my great-grandmother’s kitchen—
not in memory, but in presence.

The wood creaked like it knew my name.
The stove wore the scent of collards, oil, and time.
And my grandmother—long gone from this earth—stood beside me,
soft-eyed, solid as ever.

My sister was there too. At least, she wore my sister’s face.
And my husband, quiet, familiar.
And a toddler—round and full of breath—spilled laughter onto the linoleum.
We were waiting.
For something, or someone.
For the next child, maybe. Another piece of me becoming.

---

Then the baby peed on the floor.
A small mess.
But a real one.
And before I could move to clean it,
the dogs—my dogs, gone in waking life—
came to lick it up.

There was no drama. No shame.
Just instinct.
Just life.
Just the everyday wildness of care.

I told my husband,
“Run the bathwater.”

I had to clean the child,
not because she was dirty,
but because that’s what love looks like when it moves.

And then I knew—
I was not in just any kitchen.
I was in her kitchen.
The first woman I remember being both warm and stern.
The woman who fed the neighborhood before she fed herself.

I was standing in the place where our women have always stood—
between mess and memory,
between caretaking and waiting for something yet to be born.

---

This wasn’t a dream.
This was a visitation.

It was my grandmother reminding me:
“You didn’t come from us. You are us.”
It was my great-grandmother saying,
“The water is ready. You know what to do.”
It was my own becoming arriving
in small feet and sacred fluid
and a room where I’ve always belonged
but never expected to return.

---

💬 For You, Sister Reading This:

You who’ve kept the house together with grief in your hands.
You who’ve raised children, and sometimes yourself, alone.
You who’ve felt like the black sheep,
when really, you were just the first one to remember your name.

This is not about motherhood.
This is about lineage in motion.
This is about caring for the life you’ve already birthed—
and holding space for the life that’s still on its way.

You are not messy.
You are mid-becoming.
You are not late.
You are living right on time.

Let the dogs lick the floor.
Let the baby cry.
Run the water.
And when you get the chance—
step into the kitchen of your becoming,
and wash yourself back into truth.

• Elunai