What could have kept a son and mother separated for more than 40 years?
Sylvester Medor who recently returned to Guyana for the second time in two years in search of his mother said that when he was a child, she had walked out on him and left him with one relative after the other.
However, he said, “she is now in her twilight years and is not the worst person in the world and I don’t want what she has. I only want to take good care of her.”
Medor had approached the police and the media last month, after he could neither find his mother, Noelina Prospere-Medor, nor her caretakers when he returned to Guyana.
As different versions of the story unfolded, many have questioned the four-decade gap.
Medor, 51, from his London home on Friday, told Stabroek News that as a boy he spent most of his time with his grandmother. After she died, he went to live with an aunt and at one time, he was with his father. Finally, he said, he stayed with his mother’s sister, who practically saved his life even though she had six children of her own.
According to him, his mother and father had split up and she had married another man with whom he did not get along.
Medor said when he was 17, his mother told him that she was going to Guyana to live with her husband. “She asked me if I wanted to come and because I didn’t know anyone there or had no idea where I was going, I stayed alone in the UK,” he said.
It was not until December last year that Medor made his first visit to Guyana where he saw his mother after such a long time.
“When I went to see her she didn’t recognize me. She kept looking at me, but could only remember my voice,” he said.
He said that while his mother stayed at the Albouystown house after she and her husband separated, he sent money for her maintenance. At that time, he said, the woman was being cared for by his stepfather’s son, who had been made Power of Attorney, to look after her welfare.
According to him, it was only at that point that Hubert Alexander came into the picture. Alexander was responsible for Prospere-Medor when she was found at the Craig apartment last weekend. He has since openly admitted that he had instructed his wife not to release any information to anyone about the woman’s whereabouts.
Despite the long story, which led to the way things are today, Medor said, he intends to do all he can to ensure that his mother is happy and comfortable.
“I don’t want to degrade my mother because she is still my mother at the end of the day. Everyone makes mistakes and I won’t put her down for that. I made a choice to stay. I don’t dislike her for that… It’s my chance to give something back to her. I just don’t want her to suffer no more,” the man said.
He observed that it has been heartrending that people have seen him as wanting a property that doesn’t even belong to his mother legally as yet, when he was already happy with his family in the United Kingdom. He insisted that he just wanted to take care of his mother in her twilight years in the best way he could.
Property possession
Medor has been accused by his mother’s former caretakers of wanting to take possession of a property she once occupied, which was apparently part of a settlement between her and her ex-husband. But Medor said it was the caretaker, who only came into the picture last year, who had plans for the house and was upset with him for not giving in to his demands to send large amounts of money.
“I am not lying. I don’t want people to think I want any property. It is just not my interest,” the man said.
He questioned why the police had not made attempts to arrest and charge Alexander and his wife and said he has since contacted Commissioner of Police (ag) Henry Greene in this regard.
Medor has asked the Human Services Ministry to take responsibility for his mother and her needs until he returns to Guyana in another eight weeks to make more permanent arrangements.
