The day I did the unthinkable

Oct 26, 2014 Features / Columnists, My Column

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In my very young days I was a server or as some people say, an altar boy. I therefore participated in many funeral services in Anglican churches and I often heard the priest say, “Oh death, where is thy sting?” It was a ritual, so the meaning meant nothing to me. It does now.
I went to bed on the night of October 12, last. I had spent the day cooking and later, writing a piece for Kaieteur News. Earlier in the day, I tried calling my son, Alan, because it was his birthday, but I failed to make contact. I had seen him the day before when he visited my home. Neither of us knew that that would be the last time I would see him alive or talk to him.
Shortly after one the Monday morning I got a frantic call, “Grandfather, come quick. Daddy getting a stroke”. What I did then was to tell them to get him to hospital, because by the time I would have got dressed and drive to his home in Sophia then get him to hospital heaven knows what could have happened.
When I did see him later that morning he was hooked up to a ventilator, but a friend who took him to the hospital told me that he did not look good.   He had sustained a massive brain haemorrhage. The doctor told me that the prognosis was not good and that should he survive the next 48 hours then he had a chance at life. My son died 24 hours after he entered the hospital. By then his mother was flying from her home in New Jersey.
People often say that parents are not supposed to bury children unless they kill them. I did not kill my son. Things got rough when my ex-wife landed at the airport Tuesday morning. Her first words to me were, “I come home to bury me son?” I choked on my tears and tried to deflect the question. In the end I had to tell her that he died while she was in the air.
But it was how I got the message of his death that hit me like a lightning bolt. My daughter-in-law called shortly after two Tuesday morning to say that Alan had suffered a cardiac arrest. I asked whether they had resuscitated him and she said, “He is dead.”
That was two weeks ago and while I have had some moments of weakness, I am still to really accept that my son is gone. He was 42.
There was a lot wrong with him. He was hypertensive and a diabetic. He was also alcoholic. I suspect that his drinking began after his brother and best friend, and his mother, left this country in 1994. He cried then and things began to go downhill. By then he was living on his own in a house his mother and me built for him. He was later to build a permanent structure.
I quarreled with him over his drinking; I beseeched him to stop but I kept pandering to his financial requests. There were times when he told me that he wanted money for gasoline when I knew otherwise, but I gave him.
One never knows what love is until it is taken away. I loved my son but it was not the all-encompassing type that would keep me wondering about him all the time. It was more like having something that one treasured, knowing that it would there when you needed it. He was mine.
The memories keep coming back and ever so often when I am alone the tears would flow. In the wake of his death I drowned myself in work. My colleagues would look at me and wonder what kind of an animal I was. They could not understand and I did not tell them.
It was my duty to inform my sisters and brother who live overseas. Their reaction was understandable and they too broke me down, but to them I had to be strong; I had to let them know that I was alright even though I was not.
People know their friends in times of need. There were many, too many to mention. President Donald Ramotar called me, Dr Luncheon sent me a text, Priya Manickchand offered me help in any form as did Glenn Lall and his wife, Bhena. The calls were numerous and GT&T should give me a portion of the money they would make from the hundreds of phone calls people placed to me. How can I thank my hundreds of friends?
His friends were there too. I remember the day he died I went to Woodlands Hospital to prepare him for the funeral home. There was this girl whom I do not know. She said to me that she once worked with Alan then she started to cry.
We often see race in everything. My son transcended race, because people of every race and colour shed tears for him. I thank them for their sentiments and hope to keep close to them because each of them has a piece of my son.
The funeral was too big for me. Since 1982 all of my siblings had not been in the same place at the same time. My son brought everyone together and what was sweeter was that my 90-year-old mother was there.
People reach out at times like those. One of my daughters could not come, but she did not miss the service. One of her friends, Karen Daniels, streamed the entire proceedings to her in New Jersey. Then she said that she regretted something she did after. She took a photograph of my son in his casket and sent it. My daughter collapsed.
Two nights ago, I saw my son and I realized that I have not let go. Even now I expect him to come walking in with the greeting, “Hi Pops. What you doing?” Here am I doing this piece and I am seeing him again.
I know that I can’t have him anymore, that I will never be able to hold him, to scold him, to give him anything; not even to cuss him for his indiscretions.
He has gone, taking his demons with him, and leaving me behind to feel that somehow I failed him.

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