Madam Madam was born from two realizations: one deeply personal, the other profoundly cultural.

The first was personal.

My maternal grandmother developed dementia, and I witnessed what that meant in real time. You can have full access to a person while slowly losing access to everything their mind holds. Memories that once felt permanent begin to disappear, taking with them stories, traditions, and pieces of a family's history.

My paternal grandmother experienced memory loss differently. While many details faded with age, one thing remained remarkably clear: her recipes. She could recall measurements, techniques, and meals she had prepared for decades with astonishing precision.

That contrast taught me something I couldn't forget.

Memory is fragile. It is selective. It is unpredictable. We can lose access to the people we love—and the knowledge they carry—through illness, through time, or simply through distance. There is rarely a warning

The second realization was cultural.

The first time I visited Haiti, I saw something that had been quietly unfolding my entire life. The conversations I'd had with my immigrant parents about language, food, history, and identity suddenly had a place. They had geography. I could see both where I came from and how much had already been lost between generations.

Like many first-generation Americans, I grew up between two worlds without being fully fluent in either. I didn't always know the language. I couldn't prepare every family recipe. There were stories, traditions, and histories that I knew existed but had never been fully passed down.

And I realized that with every generation, the distance grows a little wider.

The question that stayed with me was simple:

If I had to equip the next generation with the knowledge of where they come from, would they be in good hands?

The answer was no.