keep walking toward the places that remember you. For me, that place is a market.

If you want to see me glow, see my widest smile, my most natural self, my most open moment, come with me to a market. Any market will do. But I am drawn most to the ones that take me back to my roots.

THE MARKET WOMAN WHO NEVER STOPPED BELONGING

My grandmother, Mama Ocha, was a market woman. She stopped selling decades before I was born, but her love for markets never stopped.

At our childhood home in Lagos, she knew every market woman by name, and they knew her. After church on Sundays, she walked the rows of stalls as if she still had one. She stopped to ask after each woman. She greeted them for the joy of hearing them answer. She haggled just to hear them haggle back.

I never saw her sell a single thing. But I watched up close how she loved this space. Fruit and vegetables or fabric and clothing, it didn’t matter. What she loved most were the people who kept a market moving in rhythm.

Nobody could escape that love, not even me. I am her granddaughter through and through.

THIRTY YEARS LATER, A MARKET IN HER HONOR

Last weekend was 30 years since Mama Ocha left this earth. It was also the day we opened our first youth market, in her honor.

Look closely at this photo. Chandeliers above. Racks of bold, striped, carefully chosen fabric. Young entrepreneurs standing beside the work they curated. Shoppers leaning in with phones in hand, deciding what to take home. It’s a ballroom in St. Louis, a world away from a Lagos street, and yet the rhythm is the same: greeting, asking, bargaining, belonging.

As I walked from stall to stall, I kept wondering whether Mama was walking beside me. Either way, I knew whose footsteps I was following.

We didn’t build this market alone. We built it with grace, and with love from the One who came to save me. That is what makes this life full.

THE DAILY PRACTICE: CONNECT ONE DOT

My grandmother taught me this without a single lecture: belonging is a practice, and you walk it every day. Try this today:

1. Greet someone by name. The cashier, the neighbor, the colleague you usually rush past.
2. Ask how they are, and wait for the answer. Greet them for the joy of hearing them respond.
3. Connect one dot. Name one thing you do today because someone who loved you did it first. Then do it on purpose.

This life is too precious not to connect the dots and live it on your own terms. If you know me, you know we are living our most fulfilling life. However this chapter unfolds, I will always be glad we followed the one who first saw me, named me, and framed me.

Mama Ocha, you are truly missed. Rest, rest in peace.

Keep this.

AI was used for formatting only. All words, stories, and reflections belong to the author, Juliet Iwelunmor.