From Saltwater to Storytelling: The Roots of The Kind

Welcome. I'm Shauna-Rae Missick, and I invite you to dive into a current of memories, history, and self-discovery with me. The place of my beginning, that gave rise to The Kind — a story born in the turquoise waters and tangled truths of the Turks and Caicos Islands.

[Image: With my sisters and grandmother in Provo]

This is more than a book introduction. It’s a return to the island that raised me, to the voices that shaped me, and to the healing that took years to arrive.

🌊 An Island Childhood

[Image: Tree climbing with sister and friend]

I was born in 1992 in Providenciales, Turks and Caicos — a time when the islands were still developing, stitched together by salt, sea, and family. My father was local; my mother, a white woman who had fallen in love not only with him, but with island life itself.

Together, they started a boat charter business called Catch the Wave Charters near the Leeward dock, just a stone’s throw from my old primary school, Ashcroft.

[Images: The old Leeward Dock and Catch the Wave’s building]

Growing up with my two younger sisters, we became strong swimmers under our father's guidance. The ocean became our refuge, a sanctuary where we found peace and freedom.

When school or home life became overwhelming, Afternoons were spent climbing trees, painting in youth centers, and running barefoot across coral dust.

[Image: Boat captains with a tourist catch]

[Image: Old Catch The Wave boat captains with a catch]

[Image: The old crew and captains of Catch the Wave Charters]

🚨 School Struggles and Racial Challenges

While the ocean provided solace, my school experiences were a stark contrast. I attended Precious Treasures for early childhood, then Ashcroft and later Richmond Hills for primary school. It was there that I endured the most painful experiences of my youth.

Because of my mixed heritage, I was singled out. Teachers and some students saw me as "red-skinned," an outsider despite being a local through my father. My mother’s race drew contempt, and I was subjected to corporal punishment that bordered on abuse. Some teachers, including one who eventually held me back a year, made it their mission to "humble" me. The emotional impact of those years was lasting.

Later, I transferred to Maranatha High School, a Seventh-day Adventist school. Though the bullying eased, I withdrew into myself. I was quiet and anxious, often retreating to corners with a book, frequently misjudged as aloof. I wasn’t. I was just surviving.

🕯️ Faith, Culture & Belonging

[Images: Youth center backdrop painting and its creation]

The Turks and Caicos are profoundly spiritual, with most of the population practicing Christianity, with Baptist, Methodist, Anglican, Church of God, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, and Seventh-day Adventist denominations being the most prominent. I attended an SDA high school, and many of my earliest understandings of morality, community, and resilience were shaped there.

Beyond the church walls, island culture comes alive in drumbeats, handmade costumes, and coconut-scented parades. I participated in youth center programs, helping to paint stage backdrops for performances that celebrated our heritage through music and dance.

Despite the scars school left behind, I was always surrounded by love: from cousins, local friends, boat captains who became uncles, and strangers who welcomed me with a nod and a plate.

🚤 Crime, Then and Now

While faith and culture provided the influence in my foundation, the island's ever evolving challenges also shaped this journey. When I was growing up, gang activity wasn’t part of our daily lives. Fights were few, and I mostly kept to myself, avoiding trouble. But today, I hear how Turks and Caicos is grappling with a growing crisis.

That since 2022, gun violence and gang-related crime have surged. That there are now over 14 known gangs on Providenciales, many tied to drug trafficking and illegal firearms. The first mass shooting occurring this year 2025. This isn’t the island I remember, and yet, I still hold hope. Hope that the same community that raised me can heal and evolve.

🏛️ Slavery, Surnames & Legacy

The history of Turks and Caicos is rooted in more than salt. Long before Columbus sailed nearby, the Lucayan Taíno people lived here in harmony with sea and sky. But within a few decades of European contact, they were gone—enslaved and deported to work gold mines in Hispaniola.

By the 1700s, enslaved Africans were brought to the islands by British and Bermudian salt traders. Many of the surnames still carried by local families today, including mine — Missick — were passed down through this system.

To bear that name is to carry both pain and pride. It’s a lineage forged in hardship and endurance.

🌊 Saltwater as Sanctuary

[Image: My dad with his catch at the past Leeward dock]

[Images: Free snorkeling with my sisters]

My memories are stitched with salt: snorkeling with my sister, watching my dad haul in massive fish on deep-sea charters, swimming through coral forests. The Leeward dock was our second home, a place where laughter echoed and stories were shared. I saw tourists come and go, captains tell stories, and tides shape the shoreline.

Those waters gave me something school never did: the space to breathe, to imagine, to feel weightless.

🌍 Where The Kind Was Born

The idea for The Kind first came to me when I was 14. I saw glimpses of the story then — pieces of characters, visions of a girl caught between identities, between realms of spirit and survival.

But I knew I wasn’t ready. I had to live. I had to heal. I had to learn what it meant to carry trauma and beauty at once, what it meant to forgive and to transform.

Now, after years of growth, The Kind is ready to come into the world. And it begins where I began: on a small island in the Atlantic, where saltwater mends the soul and stories are waiting just beneath the surface.

Thank you for stepping into this space with me.

This is where The Kind begins. But it’s also where I do.

Shauna-Rae Missick  

The Kind Beginning