How A Podcaster Who Amplifies Voices Learns To Own Her Voice

Makini Smith’s first word was her sister’s name Andrea. Makini says it sounded more like A’gea than Andrea but her mother remembers her chanting it over and over. 

They grew up in Toronto’s government housing. She remembers shredding newspaper to use as toilet paper. She remembers hauling water from their neighbor’s hose when the utility turned off their water for not paying the bill on time. 

When she was a baby Makini’s parents, both Jamaican, split and her dad moved back to Jamaica. That left her mom working several jobs to support Makini, and her brother and sister. 

MAKINI: My older sister was like my, my second mom. My mom was at work, she would make sure that I got inside, you know, before the street lights, came on, had my bath and, and got ready for bed. She looked after me in terms of like sometimes picking me up from school. 

When Makini was five years old, a boy at school started bullying her. Every day Makini would come running home to her sister with a new complaint.

MAKINI: And every time I came home crying and she would tell me, like, stick up for yourself, stick up for yourself. And I would continue to come home crying. 

One day Makini came home with a tear stained face and told Andrea, who was seven years older than her, the boy had pulled her necklace off her neck and thrown it up on the roof of the school.

MAKINI: And I ran home crying to my sister and she walked me back into that playground, to that schoolyard and told that boy to never lay a hand on me ever again, or he was gonna pay for it. And, uh, ever since maybe that moment where I felt like, you know, she was my protector, she would speak up for me.

From that moment on Makini relied on her sister to be her voice … until that was no longer an option.

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales

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Growing up Makini felt it was her role to be the parent pleaser.

MAKINI:  I think just from my conditioning as a child, um, to kind of, I guess, be quiet, and, you know, with the old school west Indian upbringing of children's should be, you know, seen and not heard, um, just trying to stay quiet and not cause any form of stress. I believe pretty much every occasion, I found it challenging to use my voice. I think for so many years, I didn't, I didn't realize I had one and I, I felt I'm gonna say, uh, too scared to even use my voice. …my sister would argue with my mom and I did everything I could could to, you know, keep my mom happy. So I didn't give her as much stress as my sister.

Makini relied on her sister to speak for her.

MAKINI: It could be something as simple as returning an item that I had purchased and didn't want to a store I would be too afraid to do so, or too afraid to even approach the cashier, to let them know that I wanted to do the return. My sister would come with me and she would go up to the cashier for me and do the return for me and speak for me. … my mother would refer to her as my lawyer, because if I had something to say to my mom that I didn't feel, um, I had the strength to use my voice to say I would express it to my sister and she would speak on my behalf.

Makini was her big sister’s shadow. Andrea would take her with her wherever she went. Even when she had her friends over, Makini would sit in the corner of the room.

Throughout elementary school and high school Makini would depend on her sister more and more. When Makini became pregnant at 17, initially Andrea was disappointed in her. 

MAKINI: I was 17 so it was totally understandable. But my sister was extremely supportive during my entire pregnancy. She was there for everything including of all things for when the baby arrived.

Her mom told them there wasn’t room for grandbabies in her tiny apartment. First Makini lived with her high school sweetheart. Then when Makini was pregnant with her second baby, their dad sent them money and the two sisters bought a house together. 

MAKINI: I was pregnant and extremely moody dealing with postpartum depression my sister was still very supportive. We would hang out together, watch movies, go for car rides together, go shopping together, cook meals together.

The sisters’ relationship evolved when Makini and her boyfriend broke up shortly after the birth of their second daughter.

MAKINI: My sister was totally there for me while I was grieving that 8 and a half year relationship.

Andrea tried to make her laugh and bought gifts and ice cream to cheer her up.

Andrea became a second mother to Makini’s kids. 

It was through Andrea that Makini met her second boyfriend.

They wound up getting married and having a son. It was 2006 after Makini had given birth to her third child that she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. All throughout Makini’s 20s, Andrea was there for her: when she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, when she needed support with her kids when she found out her husband was having an affair.

MAKINI: She was the one who served my ex-husband papers because I was too afraid to do so. LAUREL: Oh, wow. MAKINI: She was never afraid and that was one thing I admired about her and if she was, I didn't see it.

Andrea even moved in for six months to help Makini with her three kids. She says having her there was like replacing a leg on a broken chair. She didn’t feel stable without Andrea. Makini was starting a full time career in real estate and realized she could not be the mom she wanted to be for her kids without her sister’s help. 

MAKINI: She didn't have to move in with me after the divorce or while I was going through it. Just the things that she did, um, to let me feel supported and like I wasn't alone, um, made me feel important.

But in the summer of 2012, everything changed. It was especially hot and humid in Toronto. Andrea had moved out but the sisters still met up at church every Sunday. They tried to leave home at the same time so they’d arrive at church around the same time. One Sunday Makini called Andrea to see if she was ready to leave.

MAKINI: My niece basically took the phone and said, ‘mom's having trouble breathing. She doesn't wanna say anything. She doesn't wanna scare you. Um, but I think you should know.’

Makini was shocked and told her to put her mom back on. But Andrea assured Makini if she didn’t feel better after church, she’d get it checked out.

MAKINI:...and we got to church and, you know, my sister expressed feeling a little uncomfortable and she went up to the altar to pray and came back in tears.

Makini says she was disturbed by how unusually quiet Andrea was during the service. They sat, held hands, hugged, and prayed. 

MAKINI: Go to the hospital. If there's any walk-in clinics that are open on a Sunday, just go get it checked out…

And after church Andrea finally agreed to go to the doctor. Makini was in the middle of an argument with her ex about driving her son back to her house, so their mom wound up taking Andrea to the hospital. The doctors found a blood clot in her lung so they kept her for observation. 

Makini says she and her sister had both dealt with fibroids and Andrea had been on blood thickeners for hemorrhaging issues. 

Andrea’s texts to her were reassuring and Makini was still reeling from her fight with her ex so she wasn’t alarmed. 

MAKINI: She had messaged me that night and said, um, they're gonna keep her for the night that she'll, um, see me tomorrow. So I messaged her and I said, I'll come see you in the morning. 

But the next morning, Makini got two phone calls while she was getting her kids ready for daycare. 

MAKINI: The hospital said somebody needs to come now. So I believe that the first call may have been when she went into the cardiac arrest. And then the second call was, um, after they put her into the induced coma. 

Andrea had fallen on the way to the bathroom that morning, and hit her head, and from that moment on her condition deteriorated rapidly.

Makini didn’t know the severity of Andrea’s condition until she arrived at the hospital. That’s when she called her entire family who showed up. The following day they began to take shifts sitting with her while she lay in a coma. After 24 hours they took Andrea off the meds. When it was Makini’s turn, she took hold of her big sister’s hand.

MAKINI: They said that they had taken her off the meds that, you know, she may wake up slowly and they notified us that, um, you know, there may be some fluttering of her eyes and signs that she's waking up and to not be alarmed…And I was sitting there rubbing her hand and her eyes opened and she looked at me and I was waiting for what the nurse said would be her eyes fluttering. And it felt like a very long time, but it was probably 30 or 60 seconds, but she stared straight at me without blinking. And I looked at her … Um, I feel like she was trying to communicate something to me in that moment. 

That was the last time Andrea opened her eyes. The hospital kept her on life support for three weeks then called the family together for a meeting. The staff ushered everyone into a crowded hospital board room. 

MAKINI: My parents, my niece, a couple of church members, my brothers, my sisters, like there were so many of us in the room they didn't have enough chairs. But when they told us, um, that they had to take her off the life support… 32 her organs had started to shut down and that, you know, that the brain damage they'd showed no activity in her brain. And um, the hospital legally declared her dead. 

Makini was heart broken. 

MAKINI: It was, I think that was probably the first time for me, where I felt like, who do you even comfort in that moment? um, her daughter, who's an only child, you know, her, her father who that's his first child or, you know, her, her mother, her first daughter. Um, it was, um, very hard to say the least. She was like the hub of the family. 

Andrea’s death broke Makini for some time. For weeks her eyes were swollen from crying herself to sleep. Her real estate business came to a halt. She felt lost without her. Makini says Andrea was her rock, her voice. For six months she didn’t work, other than checking on her mom or going to church she barely left the house. 

MAKINI: That's where I started to receive phone calls and text messages and social media messages and, um, messages from people I'd never heard of in my life, never met, uh, her coworkers that wanted to let me know, how much she meant to them, how much she had touched them with her life. And that's when I realized that she wasn't just important to me. She wasn't just a big deal to me. I guess the outpour of everyone wanting to share how much she did for them, um, opened up my eyes and my mind to like, wow, like what type of legacy do I wanna leave behind? How do I wanna be remembered? 

Makini recalled Andrea showing up for so many friends and family members.

MAKINI: I had people that would send me screenshots and show me that it would be two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the morning and she should be sleeping cuz she has work the next morning, you know, sending them these beautiful message just to let them know that she loves and supports them and that God loves them. She just made people feel very important. 

Makini started to examine what she did for others.

MAKINI: I thought to myself before that, I only really, I guess, cared about my immediate family. Like my own concern was, you know, my, my children or the people in my household … I thought, okay, how can I emulate some of those qualities? And I started to come outta my comfort zone. 

Andrea’s words played in Makini’s head. She would pray and hear her sister’s voice alongside her own. When she went to church she’d sit where she and her sister sat together so many Sundays.

MAKINI: I tried to do some of the same things to hold onto those memories.

Makini made the conscious choice to change her mindset. Every morning she says a prayer, meditates, and sets her intention for the day. 

MAKINI: It helped me to understand… Talking to God and listening has helped me in terms of not relying on self on ego and surrendering…

One morning she was reading Joyce Meyers’ daily devotionals book. It said, “Don’t be afraid of change because it is leading you to a new beginning.” And Makini noticed she felt a little bit better like she could somehow face the day. Then she thought what if I shared this on Facebook? What if someone else needs to hear this? She’d never shared something so personal. But then she thought, what would Andrea do, and tapped the post button.  

MAKINI: At first it felt very uncomfortable because it felt like is anybody even gonna care that I posted this? Like, is anyone reading this?

Then she got in the habit of posting a quote that she found inspiring everyday.

MAKINI:  It felt uncomfortable at first putting it out there. Um, but I think what helped encourage me to be consistent with it was the days when I didn't post. And I got asked, where is it? It made me feel like it was helping someone, um, even if it was in the smallest way. … I would have family members and friends both say it to me and write it on social that, you know, my sister will be proud… I started to shift and in that shift in me, I started to feel, you know, better about life, but I also started to feel like I could, would make a difference, even if it's just in one person and even making that difference in one person, the domino effect that it has in how they deal and interact with other people. 

Pretty soon sharing other people’s words gave her the courage to start to share her own. She discovered she had something to say.

MAKINI: I would share things that are happening just my perspective on it or a lesson that I learned and then that became a habit. 

Things like grief over her sister and the betrayal of her ex husband. 

MAKINI: So people started saying like, you know, you should, you should write a book. 

LAUREL: How did that feel to hear that? MAKINI: <laugh> I mean, when I first started hearing it, I was like, mm, yeah, no, that's <laugh> that sounds like a lot of attention. I don't, you know, I don't think I would, I would do that. Um, but then after going to different support groups with women for like, after the divorce and my sister passed and I made the decision to write the book because I was sharing my story and sharing the lessons that I learned and people were like, how are you able to still be so positive after everything that's happened?

About six months after Andrea’s death Makini went back to selling real estate. One day another agent yelled at Makini about a property his client was purchasing from Makini’s client.

MAKINI: He was yelling at me through the phone. And I took a deep breath and paused for a second and I said I’m sorry you must be speaking to the wrong person when  you find your manners feel free to give me a call back and I hung up the phone I set a bound and let him know I would not tol being spoken to in that way and maybe the old V me would have sat there and listened to it until he was finished or  cried and gotten over emotional I definitely used my voice in that moment and stood up for myself.

It was around this time Makini ended up meeting someone who’s husband had written self help books. She mentored Makini and played a role in helping her believe in herself the way Andrea had. With her help she was able to find her voice and become a life coach.

As a result Makini says she’s not as passive as she once was.

MAKINI: I now hold people accountable I now speak up if someone has wronged me or hurt my feelings I com that instead of ruminating on my feelings or complaining to my sis like I once would I communicate give that person a chance to correct their actions and if not I choose to step away from those people who disrespect my boundaries or beliefs. 

People started to call Makini like they would Andrea. She would receive so many calls that she had to set her phone on “do not disturb” mode.

MAKINI: I’m so big on boundaries I don’t allow incoming calls except from my children…setting up that boundary has relieved a lot of anxiety because when you’re a giving person people will take until you say no…I realized it was draining myself and emptying my cup…I now teach people how to treat me… because I may not have the capacity to be their emotional dumping ground because I may have my hands or my emotions full with my own children, or situations, or fires in my life so I may not be able to give them the compassion or empathy that I would like to.

She also made a commitment to herself about the kind of man she’d accept in her life. For 17 years she was in relationships where she felt like she had lost part of herself putting their happiness above her own. 

When Makini turned 39 her fibromyalgia took over. At times she was doubled over in pain and wound up in the hospital. It occurred to Makini she was the same age as Andrea when she died. 

MAKINI: She had had surgery to remove fibroids. She was constantly being  hospitalized for them and dealing with the pain. So when I started having similar issues, um, the, the fibroids that they found when I started hemorrhaging, um, they said it was abnormal and it was blocking my tubes on the right side. So it was causing a lot of issues. So they decided to do the hysterectomy because they felt that it could have been cancerous. And in doing the hysterectomy, I ended up getting sick, um, during the healing, um,... so that year I thought to myself, you know, my sister passed at 39, am I gonna pass at 39? There was also the mental, emotional, um, struggle of wondering what's gonna happen.

But the hysterectomy helped alleviate her symptoms and she began to use the mind-body techniques she’d learned from her mentor.

MAKINI: They teach you a lot about how your mindset and your feelings, um, you know, the feelings are really a label for the vibration that you're on and how that affects our bodies physically and understanding trapped emotions and, um, how we can actually heal ourselves through, um, our, the power of our mind. And that ended up working in my case, um, because I haven't had any fibromyalgia… flare ups in years. And I went from being someone who had … sometimes it was five outta seven days a week where I'm in bed, can't move in pain. I don't have those days anymore. 

After she started feeling better physically and mentally she was able to quit her job in real estate and dive into coaching.   

For a long time she borrowed Andrea’s belief in herself, then her mentor’s until finally she believed in herself. It’s that borrowed belief in herself that encouraged Makini to finish her book “A Walk in my Stilettos,” in which she tells her story and shares her life’s lessons. She found it most challenging to write about her sister’s death…

MAKINI: Every time I sat down to write that chapter, I would get too emotional. And I would say, forget this. I would cry my head off and say, I I'm not doing this anymore. <laugh>. And then I had to think about what legacy do I wanna leave behind? Um, you know, I wish my sister had written her story and left that, that legacy. Um, so it was the constant thought about the legacy and the impact, um, that kept me going. 

Then four years later she started a podcast of the same name. It was only after her sister died that Makini was forced to find her own voice. And she was now able to use it.

EXCERPT FROM THE PODCAST

MAKINI: I've had women share with me that my social media posts have helped them get through chemo during their cancer. I've had women that have shared with me, like they've gone through bouts of being suicidal and, you know, listening to the podcast and reading my book, um, helped them. I had a woman who lost her only son. Um, she, she had three daughters and a son and her son had drowned and that just happened to be the same month. She was reading my book and she said that she continued to read my chapter about losing my sister over and over and over again to help her get through the grieving of her son.

Makini looks back now at a time when she could have allowed her grief over Andrea to consume her.

MAKINI: I am a firm believer in everything happens for a reason…I wouldn’t be who I am today if she was still here. It’s sad to lose her, but I’m grateful that I didn't waste that opportunity or that lesson and sit in my grief. I allowed it to propel me into the version of me that I am today 

She knows now what Andrea was trying to teach her… to remove all the layers of doubt, fear and worry so she could open up instead to the possibilities her voice carried.

This is 2 Lives. I’m Laurel Morales.