♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -After I did years of work around my own healing... ...I began to see my mother's leaving me was perhaps the first wound.

The greater subsequent wounds were the people who told me, "All the things that happened to you because your mother left, you should not speak them."

I was most bruised by the people who wanted me silenced.

♪♪ Yesterday, my mother told me to write my story, no matter that I will write her in unflattering truths.

"Write," she told me, "and I hope the book sells so you can afford to raise that daughter with a heart just like yours."

Yesterday she said, "Write, my daughter," and the world righted itself.

And I wish every mother whose daughter survived the burial of these unspoken things would give her permission to say what happened, to write down how she survived the terror of being that small girl in a world that so deeply favors men.

I wish every ---- had the courage to bear public witness.

I wish every woman had the pen, the clear view, and the support she needs to scream, "What happened to me was not my fault!

What happened to me was not my fault!

What happened to me was not my fa-a-a-ult!"

[ Cheers and applause ] -♪ Hey ♪ ♪ Hey, hey ♪ -Alright, here we go.

Uh, so you just want me to jump in and start?

Okay?

-Yeah.

-Okay.

-Who's Staceyann Chin?

-I want to start by saying I'm a woman... [ Camera shutter clicks ] ...who was a girl.

I'm a poet.

I'm a writer.

I'm a mother.

I'm a -- a dissenter.

I would like to think I'm a truth speaker.

-You skipped "daughter."

-Um... I mean, "daughter" is complicated.

My mother left me long before I was born.

Her hands, held rigid and away from her own thickening body, denied me more than my father's silence ever could.

And she can no more hold me now.

Writing about the absence of my mother, that's how I've always made sense of my life.

"My mother chose her own freedom.

And if I were not so busy being left behind, I would play the drums for the price of her liberty."

The most time I ever spent with my elusive mother was in the writing and performing of "MotherStruck!," my off-Broadway play.

Zuri is only a few days old... ...asleep in my arms.

Did I look like that?

Well, how could my mother have left me if I looked like that?

When I wrote MotherStruck!," it gave me room to speak, not only about the pain of growing up without my mother, Hazel, who fled to Canada with a man in search of a better life... My mother existed only as legend in a faraway place called Montreal.

...but it also gave me permission to talk about the time when she showed up in Jamaica, only to leave again.

I was only 9.

"I'll see you in two weeks, ma chérie.

Two weeks."

As children tend to do, I always hoped that my mother would one day come back for me and my brother.

My mother never comes back.

♪♪ I still wake up when I am, like, bent double with the pain of what has happened with me and my mother.

But I now know that we're still in a story unfolding.

-I know.

The only thing I've learned about -- -What did you make?

-Um, I made clouds, which is cumulus.

-Cumulus clouds?

Yeah.

And?

-And then I had cumo-- cumu...lon... ...rimbus.

-Mm-hmm.

Alright, let's see what you got going on in this classroom.

-So this is my cover, and this is the design of my cover.

And I wrote this poem.

-Oh, my goodness.

-Here.

-Can you read it for us?

I'm just going to have to sit here and listen.

You know, it's my favorite when you write poems.

"-Ode to My --" -So nice and strong so I can hear it.

-"Ode to My Hair."

"You are as fluffy as cotton candy that I could just eat you all up.

When I look in the mirror, I look and I jump.

I cheer and I scream.

I love my hair, and I feel so happy."

-Hm.

Why did you write this poem?

-Because, um... Because it was an activity for -- that Natasha, my teacher, said to do.

-But why about the hair, though?

'Cause... -I don't know.

-No?

You don't know?

-Natasha just said to do it.

-Okay.

I like the poem, though.

It's a nice poem.

Great poem.

There's nothing that I do that isn't either in resistant to being a mom, in compliance with being a mom, in step with being a mom.

Every bit of my life is definitely informed by and built around the reality of being her mom.

Right now, I am trying to figure out what of my past is still smear on me.

What am I wearing still from 10 years old, from 5 years old, from 3 years old, from a year old, from my own birth, and -- and how is it affecting Zuri?

♪♪ Zuri, what are we doing?

Where are we going today?

Do you know?

-We're going to go to your, um, mother's house that she used to live in when she left you.

-Okay.

How do you feel about that?

-I don't know.

-You don't know?

Same me.

I don't know, either.

As an adult, I've always avoided coming here to Montreal.

I worried that there would be evidence that my mother really and truly, like, didn't want us to be there with her.

I'm driving to go stand in front of the house that my mother had lived in for many years.

I don't even know what that might mean.

I might knock on a neighbor's door and say, "Did you know the woman who lived here three decades ago?"

-Then your destination will be on the left.

-Even though I've had contact with my mother now as an adult, all my life, I've had to rely on other people's memories to piece together the details of my mother's life after she left me.

She refuses -- or maybe she's just unable to speak about her past in any kind of holistic way.

[ Doorbell rings ] -Oh, I can't believe you're Hazel-- Well, I can't believe you're Hazel's daughter, because you do look like her.

Um, but I wouldn't have known, bumping into you in the street, so... -Well, you didn't know she had another one.

-No, I didn't.

-You only knew she had the one, the youngest.

-Yeah.

-And that's because it happened here.

Like... -Yes.

-...did you see her pregnant and all that?

-Yes.

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah.

Um, but it's been a lot of years, so I just -- she just kind of disappeared.

-Of course.

-You know?

-That's what she does.

-I think your -- your best bet is Janet and Larry.

-Janet and Larry, yes.

-They were much friendlier with her than I was.

-She's talked about Janet and Larry.

Hi.

Hello.

-Hello.

-How are you?

-I guess I'm fine.

How are you?

-You know her, Jan.

-I am -- -Yes, I do.

-My name is Staceyann.

I am Hazel's daughter.

-Oh, wow.

Amazing.

-Yes.

-She spoke of you many times.

-Really?

-Yes.

-The one she left in -- in Jamaica?

-Uh, I don't know.

She talked about a daughter.

She lived right next door.

-Mm-hmm.

-She was with me all the time when she was here.

-Yeah, and she talked about a daughter, like, in -- -She brought you over here, actually, before she left.

-No.

-Yes.

-No.

Shall we sit?

-Yes.

-Because it's a long story to piece together.

-[ Chuckles ] -Okay.

-So I didn't meet you when you were this high?

-No.

-Well, I know she had a baby that she brought here.

-Who was the little girl that I met, then?

-You met Larah.

[ Camera shutter clicks ] Larah is my sister.

Before she came to Canada, my mother had two children, my brother Delano and I. So you were close friends with her, but you didn't know that she had two children before?

-No.

-Alright, what was Hazel like?

-Very nice, very friendly.

She was amazing.

She was.

-Did you know she was Jamaican, or did you think she was British?

-No, I knew she was Jamaican.

-I thought she was British.

-No, I knew she was Jamaican.

I told you she was Jamaican.

-I know she went back to England with Larah.

-She didn't.

-No.

-She told us she did.

-I know, but we found it was... I heard different stories from different people, too.

-Okay.

-Did my mother ever work?

-Not that I know of.

-Not that I know of, no.

-Did she ever go to school?

-Not that I know of.

-Not here, anyway.

Not -- Not when we knew her.

-Everybody has all these feelings about my mother, but nobody will say anything.

-Yeah.

-Nobody will -- Nobody will say one bad word against her.

-I can't.

I have nothing bad to say about her.

-That's -- But that's crazy, though.

She lied to you all the time.

But everybody -- full of smiles.

"Oh, she was a lovely woman."

-Yes, she was.

-She was.

-We had good times together.

-And what about the lies, and you couldn't trust her?

What about all that?

-Well, we didn't realize at the time.

[ Chuckles ] -But now that you realize, it doesn't inform how you feel about her?

-It doesn't change the good memories.

-Doesn't change it.

-Right.

Right, right, right, right.

-Doesn't change it.

-I think I'm evolving, but I'm not quite... When you grow up in a culture of secrecy, the only way you can find the truth is by being a sleuth, by being a detective, because secrecy is how people manage trauma.

Alright, race me to the... As a child, I felt as if I couldn't live with not knowing.

What kind of house did she live in?

What was the neighborhood like?

Was the house big enough for two children to join her?

As a child, I always imagined home being where my mother was.

I longed for life in that house.

I imagined my mother on that front lawn, on that front balcony, with her back to the flowers.

I imagined a house with lights and kitchen and a door that worked and a refrigerator that held enough food.

That's the movie I had running in my head that, when I left Jamaica and I came here, that's what I would step into.

[ Wind gusting ] Montreal has the unique crown of being one of the cities I have consistently refused to come to.

My mother left me and came to Montreal, and I remember writing to her from Jamaica and calling her collect.

You remember them days when you used to call and, you know, the phone ring and the operator pick up and, like, she says, "I have a collect call from Staceyann Chin for Hazel," blah, blah, blah, and, uh, my mother would say stuff like, "Je ne parle pas Anglais"... [ Laughter ] ...and, uh, hang up the phone, and so... But now and then she used to get on the phone and say, "You know I can't afford this call.

Why are you calling me?

Um... I was one of the millions of Jamaican kids, Caribbean kids, kids all across Africa whose parents flooded to North America and Europe to find a better life for their kids.

There were so many children left behind, receiving barrels from absent parents that those children were given a name.

They were the barrel children.

If your mother couldn't be with you, she could send you things.

They would send barrels of clothes, shoes, food... ...school supplies.

A barrel arriving in any household was a big event.

I imagined that there would be anticipation and excitement.

And everybody knew you could boast about all the things that came in the barrel.

I had friends who were barrel children.

Oh, Lord, I envied them.

The barrel was a promise... ...a kind of souvenir that let you know that you weren't forgotten... ...and I never received a barrel.

The truth is... ...I was never a barrel child.

♪♪ The details about my mother have been so few, and so when you only know a few things, you hold on to them with such tenacity.

So... I have never forgotten her address or her phone number... ...or, like, small details about her, like she liked plants or that she dressed well all the time.

There's so many things that, you know, I mean, when you only have so many facts, you just... ...hold them so tightly.

And your ankle, you'll be right -- right in there.

Your shoes will be wet.

-I have an i-- a better idea.

-Okay.

-[ Grunts ] To go through there.

-Okay.

-I look at Zuri now, who just turned 9, and she seems so much smaller than I imagine I was at 9.

Doesn't look very deep.

I just kind of remember that this was the time I was rendered completely parentless.

Nice job.

[ Chuckles ] ♪♪ I'm almost 50, and I can feel something pushing me, pulling me towards forming a different relationship to the people and the histories that have traditionally scared me.

It's time to be done being afraid.

It's time to model courage.

[ Siren wails in distance ] -"This is a story about how babies are made.

The first thing you need to know is that you can't make a baby out of nothing.

This is an egg."

-Like fried eggs?

Like eggs and bacon?

-No, no, no, no, no.

"This is the egg that you grow a baby out of -- in your uterus."

-I longed for a family.

I used every resource available to build my own.

Baba is C.J., and C.J.

is Peter's younger brother.

I met Peter, a handsome, flamboyant, fashion-forward gay poet in New York City in 1998.

Peter and I got married at city hall and immediately began plotting the logistics of making babies together.

But before we could do any of that, he's diagnosed with Stage 4 cancer.

Six months passed... ...and then Peter passed away from us.

♪♪ 10 years later, I called C.J.

to wax poetic about his brother's sperm.

[ Chuckles ] C.J., now a 22 year old filmmaker, doesn't miss a beat.

"Hey, Staceyann, if Peter were alive, he'd be doing this with you.

I think I'd like to fill in for him."

I took three pregnancy tests on Mother's Day 2011.

They all showed positive... ...and I finally let myself imagine I could have a family.

-Who was waiting for you to be born?

-No one was waiting for me to be born.

-Really?

-Mnh-mnh.

-Nobody?

-Nobody.

-You were waiting for me to be born.

-Absolutely.

It was true that no one was waiting for me, but you wouldn't know that from the way my maternal grandmother, Bernice, cared for me.

She did her very best with few resources.

She kept me alive for nine years before she got too old for it.

I think about myself at 9, negotiating this distance from not one but two mothers, being sent to live with an extended family in homes where no one was protecting me.

♪♪ ♪♪ Being a girl in Jamaica in 1980 meant I had to run faster than my cousin's fingers, farther than his sweaty palms reaching for my hands.

♪♪ My tiny breasts had to be brave against his fury when I refused.

One night, I stabbed him.

♪♪ Pencil point sliding swift into his flesh.

The whole house cried out.

And I was so proud of my yellow pencil point, sharp and without fear.

My aunt beat me anyways.

"For making your cousin bleed," she said.

And I cried more out of loneliness than anything.

Jamaica has always been able to find me, a thorn among the bloody hibiscus blooms.

My Jamaica has always been the hardest home to write.

♪♪ ♪♪ I worked so hard to escape a life of unwanted touches as a girl... ...and ran straight into the violence of 12 boys doing what they wanted with my body on my university campus.

[ Sighs ] After I got over the initial fears I had about coming out... ...I came out, and then I experienced people pulling away from me, and some people even being aggressive in the language that they would use to address me or talk to me.

I remember the evening -- I'm leaving and going across the campus and I'm walking.

And they were all kind of, like, hanging out outside.

And I was like, "Whatever.

I'm just gonna put my headphones on and just... ...keep my eyes ahead and just walk normally."

One of them, like, pulled my backpack and I turned around and the backpack slipped off my shoulders and fell, and one of them grabbed it.

♪♪ So I'm concentrating on trying to get my bag back from him, and... ...in two seconds, they had ushered me into the enclosed room and I looked up and it was, like, a bathroom.

And one of them closed the door, and I guess he leaned against it.

And I remember thinking, "Holy..." It was the first time I thought to myself, "...I'm in way over my head."

They were closing in and they were pulling at my bra and pulling at my shirt, and then the bra snapped, like, the bra strap broke and I was wearing a sarong, like a -- uh...uh... tied around my waist at a knot, and one of them just yanked the knot, and it fell.

And I was just now in my shirt and panties.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it, the door opened, and a young boy got in.

And then they were like... He was kind of like deer in headlights.

"What -- What the... did I just walk into?"

And then they were trying to tell him, "You coming or are you going?"

And this was a boy who I knew to be gay.

I was like, "You better help me or else," and the implied threat was, if he didn't help me, I was going to tell them that he was gay.

It kind of stopped and he stopped and everybody stopped and then they were talking to him, and somewhere in that, I grabbed my skirt and ran.

And then I was in my apartment for about... um... ...a week or so.

I didn't move.

I didn't go anywhere.

And in that week, I decided I would move to America.

♪♪ One of the most surprising things about that half an hour, 45 minutes in that bathroom was how silent I had been.

I didn't want anybody to know that I had been dragged into a bathroom and assaulted and I didn't fight back.

And so I took that secret with me to America.

I remember landing in America and deciding that I would never be silent again.

Our hands afire in the cross-reference of rumba and reggae, seen raining from the tips of our foreign fingers, pasting a clash of cultures cut from storybooks that speak nothing of girls with new fathers.

I remember my poems at that time had, like, a deep presence of the most gritty, unsayable details.

I want to be that voice that makes Giuliani so scared, he hires two Black bodyguards.

I want to write the poem that The New York Times will not print because it might start some kind of Black or lesbian or even a white revolution.

I want to... I didn't realize that I had all this ferocity stored in me.

It just kind of, like, erupted, and it surprised me how good it felt.

I am here, dreaming of the paradise at home, where, if memory were my only reminder, I would convince you that it isn't really illegal to be lesbian in Jamaica.

I went to New York specifically to pursue the career of lesbianism.

So when I walked into New York, I knew that I had to go and find either the gay clubs, the bookstores that sold queer literature.

I had to go find where lesbians congregate.

-Ooh!

[ Laughter ] -Nails down my back don't scare me.

Even when they leave trails of threes and fours running down the length of my spine, making my roommate wonder, "What are they doing in that bathroom so long?"

[ Laughter ] I don't mind... the soft touch of knuckles grazing cheeks, fingertips touching breast tips so gently the orgasm is afraid to .... Those are the defining moments, I think, in my life on stage that made me say to myself, "This is absolutely right.

There's no doubt about it.

There is no second guessing myself.

This is what I was born to do."

My writing became a thing that wasn't just saving my own life, but could move me towards thriving and not just breathing.

Inside my Brooklyn house, the one that I can barely still afford, there is no shadow talk of birds or bees.

We trade indecipherable metaphors for concrete words that will not confuse my daughter.

I tell her, "Your mouth, your elbow, your hair, your arms, your legs, your vagina, your whole body belongs to no one but you.

And if anyone -- if anyone ever looks at you funny, even if you feel a tiny bit unsafe, my child, you open your mouth and scream for help."

-Hi.

This is Zuri, and this is my mama.

And this -- and -- and -- and today, this is our third living-room protest.

-Absolutely.

Our third living-room protest.

And what are we protesting today, Zuri Chin?

-For picking up.

-For picking up, as in you don't like when people pick you up, or you like when they pick you up?

-Yeah.

-Yeah what?

You don't like it?

-Uh-huh.

-You have to be clear about these things.

-I don't.

-You don't like when they pick you up?

-No.

-Okay.

What about when they have your permission?

-No.

-Not even when they have your permission?

You just don't like to be picked up?

Why don't you like to be picked up?

-Because I just... My mission is no.

-Your permission is no.

Okay, so no picking up kids without their permission.

Can you say that?

-No kids...say... no picking up.

-Because no means...?

-No!

-No means no.

When you say, "No," it's not okay.

-Can I touch you?

-Yes, you can touch me.

-Tickle, tickle, tickle.

-Grand.

Zuri, can I touch you?

-Yes.

-Absolutely.

Tickle, tickle, tickle, tickle.

-[ Laughs ] -We started the living-room protests around 2015.

Zuri was barely three years old.

-This is Stacey and Zuri.

-Our community was protesting heavily around so many issues.

And Zuri was just beginning to understand what a protest was.

You look right in that camera and tell them why it is that you march when we go to march.

-Because I want police to do the right thing!

-Absolutely.

We march because... We'd go to marches where she would get to hold up her little sign and chant things and be around people who shared our values.

-We are the world!

-One day, when she was too sick to attend a rally, she asked if we could record a protest on my phone and then send it to the people who might not agree with us.

That video was the beginning of this beautiful thing we do together.

And only girls can... I never could have imagined then that it would resonate so deeply with so many people, or that they would eventually be as much for me as they are for Zuri.

Well, when I was younger, people didn't have any patience with me, and so they were always yelling at me and always treating me very short -- in short manner, in a short way.

And, um... -Well... -I don't want to do that to you.

I definitely want to be a different kind of parent to you.

So thank you for telling me that.

-Maybe it's just a little harder than you, 'cause you were in a different family.

And sometimes you just think of them when -- and then you get so angry and then you just can't hold it, and then you just start.

-Yelling at you?

This is 1977, in Jamaica, just after I was born.

My grandmother and her sister.

-See.

-My mother when I just -- not just, but, like, a couple of years meeting her.

Yo, there's more than one pack of these pictures.

Hold on.

Raquel, I'm finding pictures of my mother that I have never seen.

-Really?

-Like, pictures of my mother and my sister and -- -Is that?

-Yes.

And that's Larah.

And that's her father.

Larah has never seen these photographs.

Yes, my love.

Do you see?

-Yes!

[ Laughs ] Mommy looks like... Oh, God.

The '80s.

-Do you see that I sent you another one, like, look like you're fresh out of the...hospital?

-Hang on.

-Mommy's, like, in a nightgown that she would never be in unless she was, like, hospitalized.

-Yes.

Light-pink one.

-Do you remember when I said that she had lived in Rio for a while?

-Yeah.

-You ready for this one?

-Okay.

Who's that?

-The woman in the costume?

-What?!

-Yes!

-[ Laughs ] What?

!

-What?!

-[ Laughs ] Really?

That's like, what?

Hazel Rihanna.

-[ Laughs ] I know.

The secret life of mothers.

[ Laughs ] My mother has a lot of secrets.

I unlocked the first one when I was about 16 years old -- her phone number.

[ Line ringing ] As a kid, I called my mother all the time, so much so that I can quote you that number from memory.

[ Ringing continues ] One of the last times I called, a man answered and told me my mother had moved to Germany.

So I said, "Let's go find your mother."

So this is me in Cologne, everybody in New York.

I've been trying to get the dome all morning, but, um, it's very hard to get in one shot so close.

So... I had no idea what I would find, but I had not seen my mother since I was nine.

So there's an imagination, a larger-than-life, greater-than-everything.

I imagined some woman who was smart and who was sophisticated and knew how to navigate the world and had power in the world.

You know, that kind of perfect vision of her that existed in my head.

Everyone talked about how much she loved flowers and how she loved planting things, and all the pictures I'd seen of her from as far back as I can remember, there was foliage everywhere, flowers in bloom.

So I imagined that her house would have all these blooms.

I landed there.

I knocked and knocked, and nobody was answering.

And then I made a big show of, like, stepping away.

So I made heavy, heavy, heavy steps.

And then I kept going lighter so it sounded like I was leaving.

And then I came back upstairs, like, barefoot, like, padded quietly.

She kind of opened the door, maybe to see, to look outside, and I immediately stuck my foot in the door.

And I said, "Hello.

Do you know who I am?"

And she goes, "Of course.

You're my daughter."

And I said, "Okay, yes, I'm Staceyann."

And she goes, "But what are you doing here?"

And I said, "Well, I was in the neighborhood."

♪♪ She was far less glamorous than the woman I met when I was nine.

You know, the kind of, like, perfect vision that existed in my head of her.

I was surprised at how... ...far away from that image she was.

And then Larah, a little bean of a thing, size of Zuri, stuck her head around, and I said, "Hello!"

And she said, "Hi."

I think that's it.

I said, "Well, I'm Staceyann.

I'm your sister."

She goes, "Okay."

Come to -- Come to Mommy.

I promise I will not say anything about being lesbian for the duration of your -- your, um, your -- your conversation to your family.

You know, she had the gall to say to me, my mother, after I trekked all the way across the globe to go and find her after she left me, she had the gall, the temerity, the audacity to have feelings about the fact that I was gay.

And I was like... "One, you haven't earned that right.

And, two, I don't...care.

And, three, being a lesbian, even if it's, like, a horrible sin, is far better than ------- your kid out and walking away."

[ Indistinct conversation ] Despite that first explosive encounter, there was this sweet little girl in the midst of all of that, a sister.

And I wanted to know her.

My relationship with my mother evolved, and I stayed in touch... ...mostly with Larah through phone calls and letters.

I took trips to Germany every six months or so.

But it was apparent that everything was always going to be on Hazel's terms.

If I didn't write or visit or call, I wouldn't hear from her.

And to this day, it's still like that.

♪♪ [ Tape ripping ] [ Line ringing ] None of them are answering.

None of them is answering.

None of them is answering.

None of them are answering.

They both sound right, but it's actually none of them is answering.

So I haven't seen Mommy in about three years.

I haven't heard from her since about the beginning of COVID.

I have no idea what's happening to her in Germany.

I just bought a house.

Everything's a muddle right now.

I-I don't know what any of this means for myself and Zuri.

You know, home is a difficult place for me.

Like, I'm not quite sure I know where that is or what that means.

I don't know.

I don't get, like, giddy and happy.

But I get to experience that with Zuri, who, you know, jumps high and leaps and says, "Yes!"

Where are you?

Tell me what's happening.

-I'm in my new house except it's not exactly done.

This is going to be my room... -But then I start worrying about, will I be able to fix it?

And now that we're in this crazy pandemic, was it a good choice to move?

I don't know.

I mean, it's all a muddle, really.

-Why do you think this house business is?

Happy and crazy and... -Mm.

-How are you handling this?

-[ Chuckles ] How am I handling it?

Well, you know already.

We're, like, fighting 'cause we're both so cranky and overworked and... -We made some words the other day.

-Mm-hmm.

So we have some codes now for, um... -When we fight we say, "Mango," because we both love mangoes and -- -We just want to remind each other that... -That we love each other.

-...that we love each other.

And sometimes in the middle of a fight, you can be really... -Upset.

-...upset.

-Only thinking about the dark side of the other person.

-Yes.

That's very nicely put.

Only thinking about the dark side of the other person and not thinking about the fact that you love them and that they're wonderful.

♪♪ I think one of the things, um, having a kid has taught me is that you have to figure out your joy and your happiness, or else you'll be, like, angry, and then you can't take care of the kid.

You can't take care of the spirit of the kid.

And I-I can't say that I'm doing it well, but I'm very aware of it, and it informs much of what I do or what I don't do.

♪♪ [ Woman speaking indistinctly ] ♪♪ COVID changed everything.

I was trapped.

I mean, I had just bought my house in New York, and, um, we were just trapped inside, and there were sirens outside, and people were dying every day, and there was no sign of a vaccine coming.

I was kind of busy trying to get the house paid for when all my gigs had been canceled and I had no money.

And then when I finished the basement, I was like, I cannot stay here and just be isolated.

And then my friend in Kingston said, "You've wanted to come back to Jamaica for so long just to kind of see what life is like as an adult here.

And you said you want your kid to know Jamaica, so come."

[ Woman speaking indistinctly ] How is it?

There's something beautiful about, like, my return to Jamaica now, because I'm just sitting still in a way that I never have before.

-This question about where your mom is... -Yeah.

I don't know where she is, man.

Like, I stopped hearing from her almost a year.

-Hello, Staceyann.

Dankeschon.

I've got the lovely pictures.

Thank you very much.

I'm looking here at the Christmas list.

Cool.

Absolutely fabulous.

So, Stacey, take care and, um, much love.

Thank you for the beautiful pictures.

Love you.

Bye.

-I mean, it is so like my mother to disappear off-grid in the middle of a global pandemic.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Hi, my name is Zuri.

-Hi, I'm Staceyann.

-And today we're talking about when your parents go away.

-Is there any advice that you have for people?

-Well, it's kind of hard.

-Mm-hmm.

-But you know they're coming back.

-And what does that make you feel when you know people are coming back?

-Not so, um, afraid that something's going to happen or they're not going to come back.

-So you feel confident that your family is coming back, so it helps you to, like, just be okay with the absence and the distance?

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah.

-'Cause they're always going to come back for you.

-That is the best thing ever.

I love that you know that.

♪♪ [ Line ringing ] ♪♪ -Hi!

-Hello!

-Hello!

-Ich bin ich die Stadt.

I'm here.

How are you?

-Wow.

See you tomorrow.

I can't believe it.

-I know, I know, I know.

Like, our lives are always like this, right?

-Yeah.

-What do you think we'll find if we find her?

-I don't know.

♪♪ ♪♪ Hello!

Hello.

-Hi.

-Mm!

-[ Speaks indistinctly ] -Right here.

-[ Laughs ] When I'm talking to my, like, girlfriends and they're, like, going, "Our biological clock is ticking," and whatever, I say, "You know what?

My sister..." -Don't use me as no example of no eggs drying up.

[ Both laughing ] Oh, my God.

Okay, here she is.

See Zuri now, how she looks like you when you were a kid?

-Show me a recent one.

-Um... Let me see if I can find... You see it?

-Yes, exactly.

-She made a video... ...of that -- the time when we had the camera and you were packed to go to the airport, and we didn't get to go 'cause Mommy went crazy and got off -- you know, wouldn't come back home, remember?

-No.

-You blocked everything out?

Yeah.

Yeah, really.

I can't remember.

-Two minutes before I have to leave.

So Larah was supposed to come back to New York City for a visit with me.

But on the day we were supposed to get on the plane, Mommy just left -- left us in the apartment, and we were there waiting.

But Mommy had Larah's passport.

What time is it?

-10:28.

-You have to go?

-Mm-hmm.

But I'll be back.

You know that.

I'll never forget my sister's face.

Once again, Larah and I were at the mercy of our mother's choices.

I'm trying to see if I could do both of our faces together.

And once again... Okay.

...Hazel's choices had us picking up the pieces.

[ Laughs ] What big teeth you have, Staceyann.

Yes.

♪♪ ♪♪ Every time I visited Germany, my mom and Larah were living in different government-sponsored homes.

Once Larah left, my mother continued to bounce around from one precarious housing scenario to the next.

♪♪ [ Doorbell buzzes ] -Hi.

How are you?

-Nice to see you.

Good.

For a long time, we didn't get any infos.

-Mm-hmm.

-She was away, I think, to -- to France or something.

-Mm-hmm.

-And after, I think, three months or something, she got back to the government and needed a place to be.

-Okay.

-And then my colleague... -Became her-- -Okay.

-This is my colleague.

-Okay.

-Didn't get him.

-Mm-hmm.

-I -- There was an answering machine, and I told him that you will call him.

-Mm-hmm.

I appreciate you.

♪♪ [ Line ringing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ I feel like that's kind of it.

We can't do anything else to find her.

-I'm not sure.

-Mm.

-You're more of the one for, like, just let's just... -Get to the next step first?

-Right.

-And then decide.

-Yeah.

-Mm-hmm.

-Because maybe, like, even if... -He says -- -...he'll be like, "No," maybe... -Something.

-...there'd be some kind of clue or whatever that we can... -Mm-hmm.

The whole detective life.

-Yes.

[ Both laugh ] -We're practiced in the detective-ness.

When we sit together, we are quite aware that we had such similar yet diametrically different experiences of her.

-Talking about me?

Get back with that.

-Come sit down.

-Larah, look at the mess here.

-This is our mess, not yours.

-You can't do that.

I'm not sitting.

I want to have a coffee.

I just got back from church.

-Ooh!

I was often witness to some cruelties from my mother to my sister.

-Why didn't you go to church with me this morning?

-Because -- -Because I was sleeping!

-Oh.

-No.

I told her she's got to go to bed and wake up.

Get that thing out of my face.

-Right, at we -- -Larah and I used to go to church every Sunday.

-Yes, but she turned teenager now.

-No, she's turned rotten.

-[ Laughs ] -I could never, like, push back really hard, because if I pushed back really hard, my mother would make it so that I could never see my sister again.

-No.

I want to have coffee.

I want to have a coffee.

Okay?

Just go away.

You're a really good packer, though.

-I want to see if... -Me, too.

-Go away!

You don't even know how to pack your panties.

-Oh!

-Why are you talking about the girl's underwear on tape?

-You see the way she's got them thrown there?

She doesn't know that she needs to find them until she looks for a special color.

-Bull!

-You were supposed to go with me to church, Larah.

I'm not amused.

-It was obvious that my mother was feeling... at this process of being a mother.

So my sympathies always lay with Larah.

I mean, I could see that my mother was, like, doing a number on her.

-Do you think I'm gonna let you sit down with your big, fat ass on me like the last time?

You hurt my stomach with this big hitting that you've got.

-I mean, the more I saw about how she mothered and how she was with Larah is the more grateful I was that she left me.

♪♪ This is a woman who essentially, like, made the childhood of my sister a terror, so much so that she had to be removed by the government when she was 13.

I want you to call me tonight, and then I will just call you from America.

You see?

So you could just use that as a, um... "Hello, Stacey.

Could you call me tonight?"

Or, "I want to talk to you tonight.

Can you call me?"

And I will call you on the handy that doesn't cost you any money, and it doesn't make your phone card go off.

I had to do a lot of suffering through those incidents and then pulling her aside and taking care of her afterwards.

There were huge chunks of time in between that I wasn't there.

And then the next I heard, Larah had asked to be an emancipated minor.

Are you picking those for Mommy?

-Yes.

-Okay.

I can't imagine what else took place that my sister won't say.

♪♪ Y'all look like you just woke up.

-We didn't.

-What time did you wake up?

-I don't know.

-Well, when I woke up, I went in the room, and Zuri was laying down reading.

So she was probably up for a little while before me.

-Alright.

I-I-I spoke with your grandmother just now.

-Oh, wow.

-I haven't seen her yet or anything, and she's promised that she's coming to see me.

Do you think you could just record a video saying, "Hi, Grandma!

I'm blah blah, blah, blah, blah," and just send her a greeting?

Do you think you could do that?

-Okay.

-Send it.

Bye.

Love you.

So I just spoke -- um... I just spoke on the phone with her.

-With... -Yeah, yeah.

With Hazel.

Yeah.

Um, she -- I also have a phone number for her.

Like, I went there, and I spoke with the gentleman, and he was like, "Okay, so just call this man."

He gave me the number again, and he says, "Let me call," and didn't get him.

Came downstairs, we started talking again, and he's telling me about how he really wanted to help her, and she's a really nice person and he had such high hopes for her.

And I laughed and told him, "Yeah, everybody has high hopes when they meet her 'cause she's so affable."

He said, "Let me just go upstairs and try again."

And he went upstairs and he was up there for a long time, and then he came back down.

I heard him right standing in front of me saying, "This Staceyann is here."

Like, "Staceyann is here."

And she said -- I could hear her go, "Oh!"

And I asked her how she's going.

Like, I said, "Wie geht's?"

And she goes, "Geht."

I mean, "How's it going?"

And she says, "Going."

And so I said to her, "When am I going to see you?"

And I kept saying it.

And then she goes, "Okay, I'll meet you.

I'll meet you at 1:30."

But she has a history of not showing up, so I don't expect her to be there at 1:30.

In fact, it's possible, maybe even likely, that she won't show up at all.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Hi.

My name's Zuri.

-Hi.

I'm Staceyann.

-And today we're talking about when your parents go away.

-Or your family or your caretakers go away.

Is there any advice you have for people?

-It's kind of hard.

-Mm-hmm.

-But you know they're coming back.

'Cause they're always gonna come back.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Mommy!

-Can't even... but I can hear your voice.

-Hi.

How are you?

-...for the bus.

Oh.

-That's a lot of stuff.

How are you?

-I'm fine, love.

-You okay?

Have a seat.

-I jogged all the way here.

-Have a seat.

-You've been drinking tea?

-How you doing, old lady?

-How's your daughter?

-She's fine.

She sent you a video just now.

And I told her that -- -You -- You called me.

I put the damn bags down to get to the phone, and the bus came.

-You know, I told you, we've moved to Jamaica.

-Yeah, but for a year.

-Mm-hmm.

Just for one year so that she can be in Jamaica and, um... ...kind of experience whatever it means to be in Jamaica.

-You don't think it's dangerous?

-No.

Everywhere is dangerous.

-Well, in Europe it's getting stronger every day.

-Alright.

See?

She's like... Let me see if I can play it for you.

There she is.

-Oh, my gosh.

-See how tan she is?

-Hi, Grandma Hazel.

Um, I just wanted to say hi, and I am in Jamaica in my new Jamaican house, and I hope you're well.

I hope we can meet again.

Um, I don't remember at all, um, meeting you before, but I really hope I can remember the next time we do.

And... Yeah, hope you're well, and... -You know... Wow.

-Bye.

-Goodbye, my darling.

That sounds like a big girl.

-[ Chuckles ] -Yeah?

-Yeah, she's about to be 10 in January.

-Not 9?

-10 in January.

-January 6th?

-Mm-hmm.

Look at you remembering dates.

Aren't you too old to remember dates?

-No, no, I-I-I drink a special coffee.

-What kind of coffee you drinking?

Like, tell me about this coffee so I can get it, too.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -Today, this moment where you heard that she was in Cologne and you met Staceyann -- describe that, the journey to meet her.

What was going through your mind?

-That's a very hard question.

It was like a... whirlwind storm going through.

I-I couldn't believe it.

I kept saying to her, "I don't believe it."

I think she's pulling a joke on me, 'cause when I heard that she was in the -- in Germany, I said, "No, she's somewhere and saying she's on her way here or something," and then talking to her today and she said she's here and she's waiting for me and she'd like to meet me and she'd want to talk to me, we can have a coffee somewhere or something, first of all, I... didn't really want to come, but then listened to her voice.

And the sound of her voice is like, you know, on a hot day and you're taking, you know, a shower and it's just coming over you and something like that.

I said, "Yeah, wait for me.

I'm coming."

Staceyann always finds me.

She always finds me.

There are days when I stay away or sort of want to hide in my own little corner or something, but Staceyann is always there, and she never lets go.

She's always there.

And, um, sometimes I'm grateful.

Sometimes I'm angry because she doesn't listen when you say, "Back off a bit," but she keeps coming and, um, with open arms, saying things that are incredible considering the relationship we've had.

The times I wanted to get her when she was smaller, when she was much, much smaller than 16, that would have been good if I had her with me at that time, because maybe we would have grown together.

I thought if she finished school there, instead of taking her out of there and bringing her to Canada in a French school, that's going to set her back.

-Are you comfortable saying why that never happened?

-It's a long story.

It's a very long story.

And I-I think my daughter knows what happened.

I would have almost -- I would give almost anything to change that.

But I know I love her and I don't say it very often.

I don't say it as often as I should, but I think she knows.

I can't really explain the feeling.

It's -- It's, like, volcanic, almost.

And, um... Sometimes I get angry at her for being so, you know... -Mm-hmm.

-She doesn't take no for an answer.

It's amazing, it really is.

We've had some stormy confrontations.

She was unhappy as a child.

She needed me, and I wasn't there.

I know that.

We both know that.

A few years ago, I couldn't -- I didn't want to -- I didn't want to hear it, especially the way she delivered it.

I was angry because I thought she was being respectless or something, you know?

But we've both mellowed.

And I know she's telling the truth.

And it's her right.

She's a -- She's a grown woman.

And as long as it makes her feel better and it helps her... ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Woman vocalizing ] ♪♪ -My mother's remarkably smart.

Yesterday was the first time I saw how absolutely charming she can be.

To see it working on...you yesterday, I was like, yo.

-What do you mean?

Because of the emotion I had?

-Yeah.

You were moved by her.

-Yeah.

-Yeah, and I mean, and that's okay.

Like, that's what she does, you know.

I found myself in moments being moved, but I was not being moved without the other balance of, okay, this woman is really working me.

-Where did you meet her yesterday?

-Here.

-Yeah, where?

Where exactly?

Oh.

Did you see -- -Hello?

Mm.

Did I see what?

-From -- Did she come from the train, or...?

-She came from here.

-From there?

-Yeah.

[ Indistinct conversation ] [ Phone line ringing ] -She said she was on her way when I spoke with her last.

-Yeah, but she was inside, so... -Yeah, but... Is she one to say she's on her way if she's not?

[ Laughs ] [ Ringing continues ] -What's the German word for ringing?

Like, the phone is ringing.

Is it Klinge?

-Klingeln.

-Klingeln?

-Klingeln.

-Klinge-el?

Know what clinging is in English?

[ Laughs ] -Stop clinging me!

Clinging to me.

No, stop clinging me.

Stop clinging our mother.

[ Ringing continues ] -To the birthday girl.

-Happy birthday, -Happy birthday, Larah.

-Are you -- Have you got it on?

-Yes.

Thank you very much.

-Excuse me.

[ Laughter ] -So we're in the Wienerwald?

-Yes.

-Perfectly spoken.

-Yeah.

-Not bad.

-My German -- My German isn't bad at all.

-It's getting better.

-Yeah, I can understand more, but, I'm still struggling with saying some things.

Look at her face.

-Should have put her in the corner beside the tree.

-How old are you?

-I'm 12.

-You're 12.

Huh?

Okay, so you're gonna do the modeling thing for me.

[ Indistinct background conversations ] Okay.

[ Laughs ] There we go.

That's fabulous.

That's a good one.

-That was not fabulous.

That was terrible.

-It was good.

-She picked up her skirt.

-It's fine.

-No, it's not.

-It is.

-Not ladylike.

-No, I did this.

-She didn't pick up her skirt over her head.

She picked up her skirt over her knee.

How you complain so much, woman?

-What was that?

-How you complain so much?

-Oh.

-My God, you're gonna give me a headache.

"Oh, that was terrible.

Oh, look at that nasty this."

-No, no.

-"Look at that, look at that, look at that."

Say something nice, Mom.

Say something nice.

-I don't know how to say anything nice.

Do you want a piece of bread?

-No, thank you.

Bread is full.

-Maybe you can take it with you.

How's that?

-Nah.

It's all cold.

And I don't have a microwave anymore.

-Oh.

But since you've eaten all the salad out of it, you could also put it in the oven.

-I'm eating salad, yep, mm-hmm.

Um... Did you -- Did you vote for Angela?

-No.

[ Sighs ] -Okay.

-For Angela?

-She's very liberal.

So whoever is, like, liberal or radical is just who she will vote for.

I think I have two exes, of the more than 17 exes I have, they're -- I -- only two of them I -- one I don't speak to and one who doesn't speak to me.

It's a -- I make an effort to hold on to people and not lose and break.

You know?

I keep people.

I'm a -- I'm a -- I'm a people keeper.

Yeah.

I believe in, like, longevity.

-Mm-hmm.

-Yeah.

That's why I always come back for this one.

You see, Hazel?

-Are you including me in your people -- people package?

-Of course!

The people I love, I hold on to them.

I keep them -- the people who mean something to me, the people who... who matter in some way.

I will always do the work to hold on to you.

-Yeah, but don't you have an ex that you don't want to see at all?

-Yes.

One.

One, and I have one who doesn't want to see me.

-Mm.

-But everybody else, we talk, we call.

You know when you don't have, like, a lot of family, your friends are your family.

You know that.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Almost every Sunday, I go to the church.

Larah was christened there as a small girl.

And I put a candle on.

Put a candle for Zuri.

Put a candle for my children, asking God to protect them and keep them well.

♪♪ -I am beginning to look like my grandmother.

Only I dance visibly out of step with time as we know it.

Loop my arms around the faces that refuse to see me, in tribute to Louise and Bernice who stayed.

I raise my fist for me, for my mother, who had the courage to leave.

The lack of words between us reminds me I come from a line of women with dark scars for last names.

Women who sing in secret chorus across blue waters.

Women who are quick to tell me time has always been longer than rope.

These women teach me to play my own part in this endless song.

♪♪ ♪♪ -I thought if she finished school there, instead of taking her out of there and bringing her to Canada in a French school, that's going to set her back.

-Are you comfortable saying why that never happened?

-That's a long story.

That's a very long story.

And I think my daughter knows what happened.

I would have almost -- I would give almost anything to change that.

-I don't know if I've ever asked her, "Why did you leave me?"

But we've had versions of that conversation because I know why she left.

Poverty for the rest of your life, or a good life with -- away with someone else?

I think I have deep empathy for her as a human.

But the daughter can't allow myself to step into it as a child because she can't be trusted with the details that she feeds you.

And so... the state of her life... the deep loneliness that she exists in now, the lack of community, the lack of people who care for her, the lack of funds, the lack of a clean space that is hers, I can see that she... ...understands that leaving her children or mistreating her children or not being able to care for her children when they were growing up is a large factor in why she's alone now.

-Why do you keep coming back for her?

-I don't come for her.

I come because it is a decent thing to do.

It's a kindness I can offer her.

It's also a kindness I can offer myself... to practice... loving a thing who perhaps is unable to love you back.

And she's my mother.

You know what I mean?

Like... we have this connection.

I came from her body.

She carried me.

Uh... there are a whole lot of reasons why it happens, but...you know?

Yeah.

♪♪ Being in Jamaica after 30 years running away from what was happening here, I'm not only the person who fled Jamaica.

I'm also the person who came back to Jamaica.

Jamaica now belongs to Zuri in a way that no one can take it away from her.

My grandmother lived in this little town called Lottery.

Americans will say "Lott-er-y."

And it's really "Lott-ry."

Can you say Lottery?

-"Lott-ry."

-I was there with my grandmother until I was four.

Yeah.

Does that make you sad?

Yeah.

It's sad when mothers have to leave their kids, or they feel like they have to.

But it turned out okay, right?

Ay-yi-yi-yi-yi.

Being here now gives me the space to talk to the people who knew Hazel before she became the woman who abandoned her children.

People who knew her when she was a girl.

I remember being in this house.

I remember this house.

-[ Chuckles ] -You guys were neighbors with Grandma?

-Yes!

-Okay.

-Your grandma lived, like, down this way.

And we were kind of up on the hill.

-And Mrs.

Miles and Grandma were friends?

-They're... -Get out of here.

[ Laughs ] -My mother remains a mystery to me.

I don't know very much about her, and I-I can be honest and say that she's in the system in Germany.

She lives -- you know, her -- her life has not turned out the way that she would perhaps have planned it herself.

You know what I mean?

It's really trying to get to understand her, to know her, and to find out, like, who she was before she is this woman now, because right now, I don't think she has very many -- she don't have any access to memories of who she was as a child in any real way.

-Oh.

-And so -- -Oh, she was a nice little girl.

My mother loved her so much.

-Was she always stylish?

-Oh, yes.

Very fashionable, you know, always like the better things of life.

-Really?

-Yes.

-From day one?

-Yes.

Trust me.

-But how -- how she managed that with, um... with my... 'cause, you know, my grandmother was a very humble... -Yes, but children are different from their parents in many respects.

She wasn't -- how should I say?

-- outlandish, you know, in her dressing or so.

But just young, young lady.

-Mm-hmm.

-Just fabulous.

You know, liked the good things, better things, liked to look good.

-Mm.

Mm.

Mm.

-And nothing is wrong with that.

That is nice, isn't it?

[ Both laugh ] -Thank you for, like, being so kind to her memory.

I'm going to call her.

[ Line ringing ] -Hello?

-Hello, Mama.

-Hi.

-Wie geht's?

Uh, I have to tell -- I'm good.

I have a surprise for you.

You would never guess who I'm sitting next to right now.

No, no, no, no, no.

I am sitting beside one Mary Miles.

Do you remember such a woman?

-No, no!

-Yes.

It is really true.

Yes.

It's me, Hazel.

How are you?

Yes!

-I must be... Are you alright?

-[ Laughs ] -You -- Oh.

-You remember the house and Catherine?

You remember Montego Bay?

-[ Crying ] -Um, you remember Montego Bay, Hazel?

Yes.

With the sea and the beach and the this and the that?

[ Laughs ] That's right.

She died -- oh, you cry.

Don't cry.

She died in, um... -[ Sobbing ] -Oh.

She died in -- Okay.

She's fine.

She's okay, she's okay.

But I'm very, very glad -- I'm very glad to hear your voice.

I tell you, the world is very small.

You know?

-You know, tracing her path and listening to all these people who still, after so many years, have deep... ...admiration for her and can speak of her kindly... ...I imagine that she must have been extraordinary to them.

♪♪ She doesn't have to be this woman who is, "I've come full circle and I'm healing myself.

And look how sorry I am for what I'm doing.

And I will never do it again."

Like, she doesn't have to be a saint for us to have compassion for who she is and who she struggles to be.

[ Woman vocalizing ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -I need to show you something.

-"Poem to my mom.

From the day I was born to now when I'm nine, I love the way you tuck me in at night.

In the darkness, you are the light.

I just want to hold you tight.

You love me, and I love you.

I really love you, and it's true."

-That's kind of very sweet.

♪♪ Whatever beauty you might see in Zuri comes from not just me, but from my very complicated mother and from my remarkably humble but lacking-in-resources grandmother.

When I look at her and I think she's amazing and wonderful and capable of beauty and triumph and error and failing and winning and smiling and raging and being sad... ...she's a whole human being, no matter how broken the people who she came from were.

-Tell me what the feminist looks like.

-And no matter what happens after this that might break parts of her... ♪♪ ...it just shows me that however broken we are, we are able to bear fruit that might hint at being whole.

♪♪ -So how are you doing?

How are you?

Are you alright?

-I'm good, I'm good.

Um, I'm standing on a farm that will soon be mine.

And... -What?

Going into the agriculture business?

-Well, I suppose.

-It's not hot enough for coffee, is it?

You can't plant any coffee there?

It's not a mountain or anything.

-It is kind of a mountain.

I think the more you understand about the process of mothering is the more grace you can extend to the mothers who perhaps mothered you in ways that might have bruised you.

Getting older is one of the best things that happens to you emotionally.

I think youth is when you're full of spikes and questions are unanswered, and you have the room to be angry because you have not yet failed anyone yourself.

But the minute you start failing other people, that's when you start finding grace for the people who failed you.

So, you know, look out for this documentary part two, because I know Zuri's coming for me.

[ Laughs ] [ Gulls crying ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪