Lessons from the Heart: Navigating Life

My name—Hyacinth—has been the source of my inspiration since I learned to spell the name at age eleven. I was forced to do so when I had to complete the Common Entrance examination in Jamaica, an island in the Northern Caribbean and to the southwest of Florida. Before that time, I was Carmen, and still am to my immediate family. Recently, my son confessed how embarrassed he was that he could not spell his mother’s name as a child. I have learned to deal with mispronunciations, misspellings, and misconceptions of whether I am a male or a female, but nonetheless, the name has always been my source of laughter, amazement, and joy in the many changes of my life. And, changes there have been! Each change came after major upheaval in my life. However, I want everyone to know my belief that each person has a destiny, and you cannot change that. You can fight it or you can just take it where it leads you. This book will help you to understand that wherever you find yourself, at any given moment in time that is where you are supposed to be. There are lessons to be learned as you meet those upheavals. This book illustrates the lessons, and I want to have them in writing to help my children, Trudy and Gregg; the individuals that I call friends and all others who read this book. Remember, you are a product of all the people with whom you interact each day of life. There are lessons in those interactions be they good or negative. In these episodes, you will not learn about the great upheavals that were negative. I discovered that if I focused on the negatives then I shut down my happiness potential, and may forget about what is important in life—caring about others! I prefer to learn from them and use them as the stepping stones in my 20 most important life lessons. You will recognize that sub-lessons are sometimes necessary, but I chose the number 20 to remember the day we laid Mom to rest—May 20, 1989. As you travel with me through the mazes of the lessons, you will recognize that some lessons came at the end of one session! Other lessons developed through the intertwining of the stages of the journey called LIFE. A good score on the Common Entrance Examination, at age eleven, ensured a scholarship to enter boarding school. I would score big time! This would be the greatest training of my life. A new life awaited me! I would no longer be the lone child in a household, but I would get to make new friends and live at boarding school, with other teenagers from all over the island of Jamaica. By the way, sometimes, there would be students from other far away countries including other Caribbean islands and Europe! The greatest adjustment came from not feeling one was poor compared to others. You see, everyone came to boarding school with the same type and amount of clothing, same type of shoes, same type of sheets, and even the same type of socks. The list of required apparel, food, and books was checked carefully, by the administration, at the beginning of each school term. Parents were notified immediately of any missing items and they had to be mailed in within the first week of the term. The only way of differentiating each student’s possessions was that each item had to be clearly labeled with individual’s initials.