We didn’t know we were preserving a culture—we were just living it
By Christie “Cici” Rachal | Bella Creole Life
In every Creole family, there is an unspoken truth: love is our inheritance.
Not just the gentle, quiet kind — though we have that too — but a deep, steady, stubborn love that weathered storms, survived migrations, crossed oceans of hardship, and still managed to bless the next generation.
When I think of family, I don’t think of small circles.
I think of villages.
Villages made of grandparents, great-aunts, uncles, cousins, neighbors, and church ladies who loved us so completely that it shaped our very bones.
I think of the elders who taught me how to love hard and live proud.
My maternal grandparents, Papa Felix “T’fra” Monette and Momo Cecile, were married 62 years — sixty-two years of learning, forgiving, arguing, making up, leaning on one another, and building a life that fed more than just their own children; it fed our entire community.
From them I learned:
Love is work and grace, braided together.
Their home was a lesson in resilience.
Their marriage was the blueprint for the kind of love I hope to experience at least once in my life.
My paternal grandmother, Carrie Dunn, whose story I only fully understood after her passing in 2024, was a revelation.
As I organized her documents and photos, her life unfolded piece by piece:
A woman who could have chosen a glittering life — beautiful, magnetic, a force —
but instead chose family, chose courage, chose hard work, and built a life with her own hands.
From her I learned:
She was flawed and human, and she loved us fiercely. I adore her all the more for it.
My great-aunts and great-uncles — on both sides — formed a net that caught me whenever life shifted beneath my feet.It was lived in front of you.
Uncle Neal and Aunt Artelia (Aunt Tee) Dunn, who lived next door when I was growing up, offered a kindness that was steady and soft:
Uncle Neal worked tirelessly, teaching me without words that providing for family takes labor, sacrifice, and pride.
And Aunt Lucille Conde, my confidant, my secret-keeper, my soft place to land —
She spoke to me as though I were already grown, already capable, already worthy.
From all of them I learned:
Days before he passed, Papa T’fra told me something I didn’t fully understand until much later:
“My baby, sometimes people love you the best way they know how.
You have to decide if you are loving them back the best way you know how.
And if you are… is it enough?”
He told me to keep others out of my relationships. To guard my heart but not harden it.
To understand that love is not perfect — but it is holy when it is honest.
I carry those words everywhere.
They softened me. They saved me. They made me grow up.
A woman I adored, Momo Mary Rachal, my Uncle Merl’s mother, summed up Creole women best:
“One thing about Creole women — we will either feed you to death or love you to death.
And sometimes we do both.”
And it’s true.
This is the Creole way.
If you want to trace your roots, reconnect with family, or rebuild the stories that brought you here, explore the Family Page of the Bella Creole Life website.
The Genealogy Workbook offers step-by-step guidance for documenting your family history, interviewing your elders, and capturing the stories that matter most.
The Family Reunion Planning Guide will help you stay organized and on track as you plan the gathering that brings everything — and everyone — together.
If you ever doubt your worth, your roots, or your belonging, remember this:
You come from people who loved hard and lived proud.
People who survived.
People who prayed for you before your name was ever spoken.
People who taught you to stand tall and love deep.
You are their wildest dreams — and their answered prayers.
With all my love,
Cici
