COMMENTARY: A Wake in Brooklyn, A Memory of Grenada

By: Christiana Best-Giacomini, Ph.D.

November 14, 2025

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” is a popular saying, recently made famous by Kelly Clarkson, but it is a proverb I have carried since childhood—through many difficult seasons—reminding me that pain can teach, shape, and strengthen us.

On November 6th, I attended the wake of Kai, a young woman with a radiant spirit and a generous heart who had just celebrated her 44th birthday. I had come to know her over the years through our WhatsApp conversations, where she always shared something joyful, uplifting, and spiritual with me and the many people who cherished her.

When I arrived at the building on St. John’s Place in Brooklyn, where Kai and her mother had lived for more than twenty years, the narrow lobby overflowed with people—mostly Grenadians—including neighbors who had lived there since the days when another Grenadian patriarch owned the building. As I made my way to the apartment, I could already hear Annmarie’s voice—Kai’s mother and my childhood friend—speaking to a room overflowing with memory and love.

Stepping into the living room, I realized she was speaking not only to those gathered but also to many others joining by Zoom. Annmarie spoke directly to her daughter, whose picture was displayed on the laptop for all to see, recounting her journey with cancer—some parts familiar to us, others shared for the first time. We listened, absorbing every word, every memory, every pause.

As I looked around at the circle of people seated close together, I was transported back to my childhood in Grenada. I remembered accompanying my grandmother Rosanna Fedrick to wakes where the community gathered—where grief was not a private burden but a collective one. The coffin would sit in the center of the room as each person spoke from the heart, weaving stories of joy, sorrow, humor, and remembrance. I observed my grandmother’s every move as she facilitated these healing circles. I did not fully understand then how deeply those traditions would shape my understanding of grief, community, and love.

After Annmarie finished speaking, Kai’s sister Camille shared her reflections. Others followed—family, friends, neighbors, and acquaintances joining from Florida, Virginia, Maryland, Atlanta, New Jersey, and Grenada. Words flowed freely; stories rose easily and found a home among us. One resounding theme emerged: Kai was beautiful both inside and out. Throughout, there were moments of laughter and tears, knowing nods, deep sighs, and quiet reflections. Then came a prayer from our childhood friend Nelcia that moved me to tears, followed by the 23rd Psalm read by Joan, another acquaintance from Grenada, and finally a hymn sung by Kai’s aunt.

We cried, we laughed, and we held one another. Annmarie and Camille’s grief was held among us all.

Afterward, we nourished our bodies with the familiar foods of home—fried bakes, saltfish fritters, curry chicken, rice and peas, and other dishes lovingly prepared by many attendees, including Miranda, who had spent hours in the kitchen ensuring everyone was fed. The familiar flavors grounded us, reminding us that even in mourning, there is care, culture, and continuity.

What was truly remarkable was that Kai continued to bring our community together even in death. I learned that because of the rarity of her cancer, she had chosen to donate her body to science so that others might be helped in the future.

During the five and a half hours I spent at the wake, I reconnected with people I had not seen in more than fifty years. One such person was Kai’s uncle, Fitzroy. Though we did not recognize each other at first and had to be reintroduced by Annmarie, we quickly fell into conversation—recalling childhood moments and mutual friends. He introduced me to his wife and daughter, and I shared contact information for people he had lost touch with over time.

Walking out into the cool Brooklyn night, I thought about how grief has a way of calling us back to ourselves, to our origins, and to one another. In that Brooklyn apartment, I felt the presence of Grenada—its traditions, its cadence, its insistence that no one suffers alone. We mourned together, just as our mothers and grandmothers did before us, gathering our sorrow into a circle and allowing memory to do its quiet work. In losing Kai, we were reminded of what binds us: love that stretches across time, across oceans, across generations. Even in her passing, she strengthened the threads of our community. And perhaps that is what the old proverb has always meant—that what we survive does not simply make us harder, but more connected, more tender, more capable of holding one another through the dark times.

(Dr Christiana Best is an Associate Professor at the University of Saint Joseph, Connecticut)

Email your opinions, letters and commentaries to: letters@caribmagplus.com