Suddenly I could hear the frog. I haven't heard the frog since we moved over a year ago. It is 5:30AM and my husband had just left. I lay there and listened attentively. Why now? Why after a year? The brook is so far away, so far off from my bedroom window, and still for some reasons, the croaking, the crying of the frog became louder and louder to my ear. Somehow, I felt nature was just speaking to me.

Morning came, and the sun rose beautifully and smile throughout the front window of my bedroom. The croaking of the frog was forgotten and faded into my memory of lost thought. Only the frog would call out to me again, morning after morning, days into weeks, becoming a ritual. Mornings turns into afternoon, and afternoon's turns into evenings. Evenings turn into twilight's and draws in the dusts of nights. All day the frog calls out to me. Then my husband began to take notice. Memorial Day, we went to the brook to look for the frog. As we gathered wild rose, we steal moments of hope for a glimpse of the frog. Yet, the frog would hide, and it was only when the face appears to me in my dreams, that I would understand once again, as to why the frog came. Actually, the frog has always been there, only I have forgotten my pledge, my drive, and my promise. How could I have forgotten? I cannot forget. Afterall, another June Day, another Beautiful Sunday, another Father's Day is at hand. I cannot forget this day, and the frog is here to remind me.

It was a long journey home. Something I was used to but have come to forget. It has been six years six long unforgotten years that I have taken this route, this route to home. Home called Jamaica, home called the hills of Orange Hill, way up in the hills of Negril Hills, Westmoreland. Home, that for a time I had made my mind to forgets, perhaps for all good cause. Things I wanted to forget. My son godmother has insisted that I made this journey home. She had actually made the reservation and had called to tell me to run the tickets. She was paying for the tickets. I wanted no part of what was arranged in many ways and for many reasons. She, like many other family members had insisted that indeed it was time for me to return to my homeland, a place I had to flee from some six years later.

We landed in Jamaica and there was a van all arranged to meet us. I would arrive in Retirement around 5:00PM. My son's godmother was the first to arrive at her destination, her family home. The family and relatives who came out to greet her were shock to see me, in that I had taken this journey with her. For them in many ways, I had arrived home and with a child, a beautiful baby boy. Pris hurriedly got her godson to show to my mother who was attending the shop. As she did so, I walked the short distance to glance at my father's grave, and in a spiritual way, a way of saying to him; I came. This short visit to my father's grave would serve as my distraction while I waited for my son to be returned to me. I was not going to be the one to bring my son to be introduced to the woman called my mother and for good reasons. It wasn't that I was carrying a grudge; it was that there was a part of me that wanted to forget the pain of how we got here, how I came to know the reasons for been there that day and on the occasions. While a part of me suspects that there were some forces at work, to bring me to this day, this moment, I was a fool in some aspects, or should I say, I trusted too much in those whom I had place upon a pinnacle of some status. Perhaps, it was my love for people and the undeserving feeling of never wanting to hurt anyone's feeling.

Two years prior, my oldest sister had called me and asked me as to why I haven't taken the baby home to see my grandmother Emma. Why haven't I gone home with the baby; in that grandmother should have seen the baby when he was six month old. I recalled telling her that, 'not in my wildest dreams would I have entertained the thoughts of taking a young baby to Jamaica, filled with mosquitoes amongst other things. I experience and travelling, my many trips all over the world, having seen the devastation's of a 'plane flight' on newborns and baby. I would never allowed myself to be talked into taking my beautiful son on a place at six months. Furthermore, I did not owe my grandmother that luxury in any way or form. Afterall, she may not be even too happy to see me. Only I was mistaken. She was sitting on her verandah for over four hours, eagerly awaiting my arrival.

I arrived in Tillbury, and Grandmother Emma had dinner ready as she waits to see me. Somehow, she had aged in a way that tells its own story. She was living a guilty tormented life, weary and in a place wherein only she had place herself. I had decided to not touch or talk about the place she was in; and at no time for the next ten days that I would be there visiting. I was there, this Easter. It was always Easter. This month of March has turn into April. This April was the year that would salute Easter. This Easter was 1996.

It was here that the shock of my motherhood would unfold. Cars would come to a screeching halts at the gate looking, staring, looking gawking, looking and to the point of many stopping to say the very words that would come back as a haunting to many, and most of all to the people who had six years earlier lied so blatantly on me. In some way, it was a joke and as comical as one can imagine. In others way, it wasn't a laughing matter. The laughing would later turn into a jeering of Ricky Jackson. "Man some-ma-dy lie to you; a what a way Noamie baby boy pretty. Man look what you miss out pon." From the Easter cricket match at Royal Park adjacent to grandmother's house to the street of Orange Hill the jeering would come to take center stage.

In all the jeering and teasing against the Don, Ricky Jackson, I would be accused of taking one of brothers child to Jamaica, claiming him to be my child. Justification came when Sister Herm insisted, in a heated discussion with the little Orange Hill Girlie Passe that the beautiful, pretty pickney was Noamie; that: "We knew when she pregnant, me say; is fe-her child." Ricky Jackson stopped his batting and stared at me. He did not see the ball, until it hits the rickets behind him. His assumption was confirmed.

Keep in mind that the cricket field is right next to my grandmother's house, and is actually on my grandmother's land. Carlene had insisted that I had no business coming back to Jamaica. Furthermore, for me to show up and with a baby, a child wasn't going over well with her, and so she was there to fight. The audacity of the bold girl! In order to have gain favor with the Don, she had spearheaded the 1990 rumors and gossips that I was without a womb that I wasn't able to have children. Something Ricky, the Don had seized upon, as a justification to pacifying his evil mind for the facts that I wanted to have no children for him and above all wanted to have nothing to do with him. This little trash, Carlene Russell, wasn't happy that I had arrived back in my own country and my hometown.

I returned home to find that my son wasn't home. Annette, my cousin had taken my son to Negril with her. I would learn from her in a few words that she had taken my son for Ricky Jackson to see. A brief moment of betrayal swept over me. Then a change came over Annette. She began hiding by the back of the house. She had begun acting strange. She had began crying and for no apparent reasons. Later, my aunt who was also home visiting asked her to leave. She was only living there after she had asked my grandmother to rent her a room, after someone had burnt down her house. A couple of days later Ricky asked to speak to me. He had come to ask me to reconcile with him and have a baby for him. I told him that I wasn't interested in having anymore children. I made the excuse to him that I had a difficult pregnancy and that between college, a full time job and my son, I was already over-loaded. We parted with mutual understanding, and on good terms. Only, I was mistaken. At least, for a moment, I wanted to; for just a swift moment believe that the snake had some compassion in him, and after all these years, these six long years that I left Jamaica, running for my life, and from him. What I would come to learn and know would unfold in its own time. I would come face to face with what Annette did, the day I went to the beach, leaving her to watch my son, and what she did. I could never allow myself to ask her; just how much she got paid and how was she paid for what she did. That is, taking my son to Ricky Jackson. The day Ricky Jackson performed 'A SCIENCE' on my son, my baby, and my two-year old.

July - August 1997: I return to Jamaica. This time, I went there with the intention of leaving my son in Jamaica. My son had began to give me some problem, in that suddenly my two year old turn three year old, wanted to live in Jamaica. He had insisted that he belong in Jamaica. I don't understand. I didn't understand. I couldn't understand. This wasn't supposed to be. It cannot be. How did I arrive here? It was the Friday night before Michele's Wedding, a year later, that I would encounter the mystery waiting to unfold.

Upon my arrival for my visit the Easter of 1996, I was given my old room at my grandmother's house to sleep. It was during the night a few days later that I watch a frog climb its way through the open window and down the curtain into the living room. I watched that night around 2:00AM as the frog took its time, and walked like a child just learning to crawl down the drake and into the room. Two days later the same frog would make its way onto the bed that I was sleeping in. I had observed the frog that would represent to me that of a young man. For some strange reasons, I felt that I was looking at someone very soul. For me, I had no explanation. At the time I was pre-occupied with the thought of leaving my one precious baby in Jamaica. Jamaica, Negril, orange hill was a place that I wanted to leave behind and for many reasons. A group of us manage to get the frog outside and we pour about a pound of salt on the frog. The frog refuses to die. Instead, the frog showed up the next day, again like a living person. That night as I had prepared to go to the live entertainment up at Alfred, I would not sleep in my bed. I got to Alfred and was standing near the stage when I saw a figure leaning against the big tree, and looking at me. Prior to this, I had felt as if someone was watching me. I knew of whom I saw, however, for some strange reasons, things were getting weird. Suddenly, I wasn't feeling well, and wanted to go home. I had already made plans to sleep up by Elaine's house that night. Courtney Henry, a neighbour was there, and told me that he would take me home on his bike. I arrived at Elaine's house and went into the house alone. Somehow, I wasn't alone. However, I wasn't afraid either. I wasn't able to place my finger on the cause until much later.

Upon my arrival home back in Connecticut, I had a dream. The young man in the dream was explaining to me that he was the frog that came to visit me. His exact works to me was "It's me; I came to you for your help. A me' man. I wasn't going to hurt you. " It was then that Leon showed me his leg, and one of his foot that had a scar on it. He would show me his arm with the bone pretuding out of its skin and join. He would tell me why he came. I would later questioned his sister and she would confirmed to me that indeed, I would never have known of the scar on Leon's leg unless Leon himself had reveal that information to me. As Elaine would insisted that it could not have been Leon as Leon has no scar on his leg, Leon's sister Precious came down to the porch and insisted that yes, Leon fell off shorty's tractor awhile back and had such a scar on his leg. Precious would further offered that I could not have known about the scar as I had left Jamaica decades after that incident and would never had know. In addition, none knew of the extend of Leon's fatality that day, and that why no one ever mention Leon's broken hand and the other injury he receive that day, that Blessed day called Father's Day June 1996, it would have to be none other than Leon who showed his scars and wounds to me. It was later, that I stated what Leon has asked me to do, the ever thing he had come into the house, and down the curtain, into the living room so cautiously in asking me to do. It was no co-incident that he would have appeared in the manner he did, up at Alfred's that night. Leon needed my help and I was about to do what he had asked me to do for him. As I asked, "Who killed Leon?" A dept of silence stood. As I asked about the accident that day, a silence stood.

I would visit the place several other times, and during different hours of the day, looking for clue and hoping that the sun would by the different angle of time, would give up the answer. For five years, I would visit the same accident scene, looking for an answer. On my visit in 2004, I re-visited the scene morning after morning. I felt as if I was drawn to the place to look and to see what was missing. I stood by the rock on many occasions and looked over to Der's house to see where it was said that Der's wife stood when she alleged see and heard the crash. Only Der's wife Georgia could not have seen the rock. Someone was lying and it cannot be the rock. So, I visit the place and asked the rock. Before doing so, I took a special cross and place it where a life was robbed. Where-in, a life was scuffed out. I place some beautiful flowers at the foot of the cross, and with my husband at my side, created a memorial. As I stood there in silence, the same feeling of what I have seen, the image in the vision began coming back to me. What I find was the same sense of what had happen that day, that Sunday, that Father's Day June 19, 1996. It was clear as day, that Leon was hit and by a car. It was clear in all sense, in that Der's wife, Georgia had lied about what she saw that day. She saw the car that hit Leon.

She, not only heard a crash; she saw whose car hit Leon and with such a force that he was dead right there on the spot, on the little bump, just up from Mr. Hogs' house. It was a place that had its own story to write. It was sweet revenge. It was the revenge that Ricky Jackson had long waited to inflict. It was his red car on impact with a young man, an innocent young man, that he had revengefully take the life of Leon Hog that day. It was the evil of a demon called Ricky that would without shame took the car home to his mother-in-law and common-law girl-friend Carlene Russell, where they would all partake in a crime and wash the blood of a killing, so cold-blooded, so calculating so heartless, from the car he used to kill Hermin's son.

As more young men calls out to me, from Ricky's killing field, young man Leon's age, showed me their scars, and asked that I do not allow their name to be forgotten, I have to ask just this once. Where is justice? Where is justice in the Jamaica Judicial System? Who is there to see that Justice is served? Who represent this young man? Who represents those [other] young men, as they speak from the grave? Has God forgotten or have we?

YESTERDAY: Features a gold cross on a black-and-green background. The flag colours represent three things of nature: the gold cross represented the sunshine that blesses the island, the green from the rainfall that makes the island lush and verdant and the black for the people and for the African slaves forced over to the island that after centuries won their freedom.