There was no Mother’s Day joy at the homes of Paula Samuels, Ingrid Leacock and Paula Guy on Sunday.
For these women whose children were murdered, it was a day of tears and heartache.
This was Samuels’ third Mother’s Day without her daughter Shenese, whose decomposing body was found off a track on Macqueripe Road, Chaguaramas, in June 2015, six months after she went missing.
The 19-year-old never returned home after going into Port-of-Spain to look for a job on January 24.
Almost two years later, her murder remains unsolved and Samuels said that has been tearing her family apart.
“Our family is no longer the same. We just have not been able to cope with her death. The joy is no longer there,” she said, when the T&T Guardian visited her at her home in Lopinot.
“Every day my husband, Simatra, would cry and ask God why Shenese had to be taken away from us? What did she do to deserve this?”
Samuels said she spent Mother’ Day working.
Samuels said the occasion brought her pain and was not happy with the way the police have been handling the investigation.
“They have stopped communicating with me. I don’t know what is going on. They need to do more to bring my daughter’s killers to justice,” she said.
For Leacock Mother’s Day was also a day of grief. Her 42-year-old son Jerry, a soldier, was shot dead on May 24 last year when four men invaded his Demerara Heights, Wallerfield, home.
Sunday was her first Mother’s Day without Jerry. Leacock said last Mother’s Day there was a special family gathering.
“I remember Jerry was here laughing and having fun. He ensured that everyone enjoyed themselves,” she recalled.
Two weeks later, the father of six was murdered.
“How can I celebrate Mother’s Day again?” asked Leacock, who also lost another child, her first son, who was 16-years-old when he drowned.
After that tragedy, she said Jerry became the family’s pillar of strength and father figure.
“With him not here the smile on my face is gone. I can’t muster the strength to go to church any more. Most times I cry because there are no answers. That loss can never be replaced. It has left a deep hole in my heart,” she said.
Leacock said the family has a theory as to why Jerry was gunned down but no information has been forthcoming from the police. “Jerry’s killing has become another unsolved murder. We need closure on his death,” she said.
The pain is still raw for Guy who could not hold back the tears still mourning the murder of her 22-year-old daughter WPC Nyasha Joseph.
The petit police officer had been missing for several days before her decomposing body was found near the mouth of the Caroni River on March 15.
Guy, 56, said: “Is as if my insides have been ripped to shreds. Nobody knows how I does feel. This is a hard blow . . . a blow I am not sure I will recover from.
“People saying that time will heal all wounds, but I am not sure. She was really close to me . . . closer than my other children.”
Guy wept as she described the relationship she had with the daughter she affectionately called Ny Ny. She said they used to talk to each other every single day. “Most times Ny Ny would call me and say not to worry. She used to come and comb my hair.
“She was trying to help me fix up the house. Ny Ny started to buy gravel to do some renovations, but now everything has been left on hold because I can’t function. I feel so empty inside,” she said.
Guy said she is trying to hold herself together for Joseph’s four-year-old daughter, Skylar, who has been living with her since she was a baby.
“Skylar is a smart little girl and she knows her mother has died and will not come back. Sometimes she asks questions I don’t have answers to.”
Guy said Skylar brought home a Happy Grandmother’s Day card she made in school last Tuesday. “When she handed me the card I just started to cry because she no longer has a mother to give this card to. We are both suffering in silence and we don’t know when this grief will go away.”
