While many mothers would be celebrating today as they are honoured on Mother’s Day three mothers would be crying tears of grief as they remember their six children who died in a tragic accident recently.
For the parents of 10-year-old Asiyah Abel, her eight year-old brother, Joel Abel, their seven-year-old cousin Rayden Abel, nine-year-old Atesha Woolford, her six-year-old sister Azaliah and their friend, seven-year-old Martina Persaud Mother’s Day will never be the same.
The six children died on February 20, when the car they were in, driven by their teacher Shaundel Duke, who also died, ended up in a trench on Burma Road, Mahaicony. They were all students of the Augsburg Primary School and were returning from Calcutta, Mahaicony where they had gone to participate in a Mashramani activity. The car belonged to Martina’s father and had been loaned to Duke to transport the children.
The agony is worst for the three mothers—Roberta Abel, Shellon Fraser and Vanessa Persaud—because there are so many unanswered questions. The car had been found overturned in the trench with the seven occupants dead inside, but no one had heard or saw how the accident occurred.
“That is the hardest for me because we don’t know how this thing happen. Sometimes I ask me self every day how it happen,” Roberta told the Sunday Stabroek in a recent interview.
Every day she remembers the three youngest children in her household, so much so that she was forced to move out of the house, which is located just a stone’s throw away from the school. Roberta lost her two children and her nephew, who was left in her care after her sister passed away three years ago.
Even though they were the youngest, she recalled that the trio always made sure Mother’s Day was a celebration in the house. They insisted on “cleaning up the house and the yard” even though Roberta still ended up doing most of the work and the cooking, but she took joy in doing it.
“But this year is no celebration for me. I know I will cry,” she said.
For Shellon Fraser, now pregnant with her ninth child, today is a day she has been dreading because she is not sure how she would endure it without her two daughters who were in the habit of giving her homemade cards.
“Just de other day, like I can’t take it no more, and I start to cry and stamp up, especially when I see other children going to school,” she related.
Vanessa Persaud lost her only daughter—she has an older son—and for her and family it was if the sunlight was taken from their lives when little Martina died. She recalled that it was Martina who usually woke her up on Mother’s Day with a card and a kiss.
“She would always hand me a card or wake me up in the morning on Mother’s Day to hug and kiss me,” Vanessa recalled.
‘Couldn’t take it no more’
An emotional Roberta related that soon after the accident, she was forced to leave the house she was living in and move back to Central Mahaicony “because I couldn’t take it no more, dem children use to have to just run over to school and seeing the school it was hard.”
The house, which is owned by someone else, is now locked up and the mother said she cannot go back.
Like the other mothers she said last Friday she would have received a Mother’s Day card or some token from the children when they returned from school. Today would have started with all of them going to church and then she would have cooked up a storm.
She may still go to church and food will still have to be cooked since she has her other children and her mother “but it would not be any real celebration.
“I would always love them and I am missing them a great lot. Asiyah loved to clean the house and decorate, and the two boys would clean up the yard,” the mother said adding that she attempted to do some cleaning for this year but it was not the same.
“The month start sad because on May 4th Asiyah would have celebrated her 11th birthday and I cry that day…,” she said.
She recalled that she was at work at the rice mill on the day the children died and by the time she reached the Calcutta Hospital they were already in the morgue. She has not
worked at the rice mill since.
“I didn’t really cry then but is when the funeral and everything finish is then the loneliness really start coming and is then I cry.”
She remembered how excited the three of them were to go on that fateful trip since they were always eager to participate in any school activity
Many days she would sit and think about the day her children died and for her the hardest part is “not coming to any conclusion, getting no answer about what really happened.
“I know that Mother’s Day wouldn’t be so special. I was telling my mom life is not the same, three links of the chain gone. We don’t have no more small children in this house anymore,” she said revealing that she has a 16-year-old and a 13-year-old.
‘Didn’t want them to go’
Shellon Fraser still remembers that she did not want her two daughters to go on the trip but it was her mother’s and their teacher’s pleading that made her relent. Now in hindsight she believes she should have gone with her gut feeling.
“But like how you call me now and I talking to you I feel better. I does feel better to just talk about it because sometimes you just feel so lonely,” she said.
Fraser was also at work when she got the news and she has not gone back to work either.
She revealed that when she got pregnant with her ninth child she became very depressed and “would cry a lot because I don’t know how that happen to me again.
“So now when me two girls dead is like I can’t take it no more and with the pregnancy I couldn’t go back to work, I just waiting to get baby…”
The woman explained that she was on two types of birth control both of which saw her bleeding excessively and she was forced to discontinue their usage. She plans to have her tubes tied when she gives birth.
It has been very difficult for her and she candidly spoke about the financial hardship she has been experiencing with no job and her reputed husband being in the interior working.
“Sometimes if I get money, I does cook and suh. Right now I bruk and I was thinking where I would get money to buy a dress to go to church but I say God knows best,” she said.
Today will be a sad day for her as she remembers her two children who are no more.
Memories
For Vanessa Persaud every day she would find something in their home that reminds her of little Martina, who was very smart and always laughing.
Vanessa said since the accident she and the rest of her family are trying, one day at a time, to cope with the loss of the child. It is especially hard for them since it was the family’s car that was being used by teacher Shaundel Duke to transport the six children when the accident occurred.
Mother’s Day is likely to be particularly hard for the mother, who said Martina always had something to give her on Mother’s Day.
For her, the passing days conjure up memories of her daughter as the family stumbles on reminders around the home. “Every day we discover something. Every day we’re finding something in the house,” Persaud explained, while noting that the child loved to write and draw.
The mother noted that had she been alive, her daughter would have been doing her Grade Two assessment. Her daughter was a “bright child,” she said, with “a lot of plans in life,” including attending Queen’s College.
The entire Burma area mourned that day when the children died and the school’s population reduced significantly. At the time the school just had a population of 14 children and with the death of the six children only nine remained.
