A subway trip to Queens was my version of going back. The 7 train ride was the trek back home, down South, the plane to the Islands.

Grandma Chin lived in Flushing. Her apartment was where the cousins were stashed in the summer with 5 tv channels, an antenna and a pair of pliers and plenty of time for making trouble. The apartment with jade green plastic diamonds hanging from her lamp shades, and twin beds made for replays of flying kung-fu channel 5 flick kicks.

Grandma Chin, or Momma, as my dad’s generation called her, only came to Queens in her 40s after a whole life lived In Jamaica including 10 children, 3 small shops, and 2 marriages. That was before my time, I had never seen the home in the country or the shop in Kingston I heard so much about later. For me Grandma Chin was from an equally distant place called Flushing. I was from the City, a place with ordered streets and pizza places.  Queens was blocks of nothing.

The trip to Flushing was 30 subway stops, a long transfer walk at Times Square, and a good dent in a book later – before the bus. Queens might as well have been a different state or country.

But there was gold in them there Flushing hills. Grandma’s Chicken awaited. First forever stops for my dad to pick up odds and ends. A walk through the door and a hug followed by the welcome fizz of Pepsi poured into a flower printed cup. My brother and I would head to her living room while my dad stayed in the kitchen to keep her company. There wasn’t a tv in the living room so we would just sit, but my ears would stay carefully attuned for the correct sounds. The opening of the cabinet for The Pot. The pouring of rice and click of the rice cooker. And then, the magic.

Grandma’s chicken is a simple dish really for Jamaican food. Compared to curry or brown-stew chicken it doesn’t require much prep or pre seasoning. Bone-in chicken pieces. Garlic. Thyme. Onion. Tomato. Soy sauce. The ingredients cut in grandma’s hands with her small sharp knife. I learned later that this is a kind fricassee dish. I knew then just to sit tight. In less than an hour I would have the best meal I would ever eat.

Most of the family on my dad’s side cook well. Christmas was always full of great food. No one ever attempted to make a version of grandma’s chicken for some reason. Some years after Grandma Chin moved to Florida, she too stopped making her chicken for me. Her hands stayed busy though in her garden. When that became too much she made magic with colored pencils.

We had the great privilege of celebrating Momma 100^th birthday  with a family fete attended by 17 of her 18 grandchildren and 29 of her 34 great grands. She passed away just under two years later.

At her funeral, I thought of her chicken of course and her hands. I thought about when my wife found out our third daughter was on the way. I was perplexed for weeks about how we could make it all work. Out of the blue on morning on the subway though, it hit me. Grandma Chin made it work. She raised 10! And she had far less as far as income. We could figure it out. I am from solid people.

Now with my daughters healthy and accounted for, and getting closer to making lives of their own, I think of Grandma Chin’s storytelling. There wasn’t any dessert to be had after my seconds of Grandma’s perfectly browned perfectly seasoned chicken in her Flushing living room. Instead, she would sit in her lounger chair and begin her updates on the family. That picture on the mantel is from cousin Lisa’s prom. The one next to it who I thought was Kevin, is Kevin. He joined the marines. Kevin who couldn’t swim? Yes and he’s doing something with computers.

Lisa recently told me she misses Momma’s stories, the detail and pictures she painted, and how she could tell them with an accent of blue to make her blush. And I thought of my dad proudly showing us where Grandma ran a bar by the harbor in downtown old Kingston. The stories she must have heard from sailors and dock hands.

I miss what grandma’s hands made. I tried to make a version of her dish, but I never learned how to cut an onion and tomato in my hand with a small sharp knife. There is a flavor passed directly from those hands. I can pass on her love for words, and her way of using them just so. A comment so slight yet sharper than any knife. My daughters will know. You come from solid people. People who make it work. People who love, laugh, and live to tell stories about it.