A Father’s Day with a difference…Three fathers who grieve over the untimely deaths of their children

Jun 22, 2015 News

By: Phylicia Richardson

So many times focus is being placed on the love of a mother for her child but the thoughts and feelings of fathers are often overlooked.
Too often people are of the belief that fathers carry no emotions and do not hurt much when a child is hurt or in the worst case scenario, dies.
However these opinions are not necessarily true. There are some men who feel every bit of hurt a mother feels for their child.
The great Bishop T.D Jakes did an album called ‘He-motion’. The entire album spoke about a man’s emotion and the importance of him in his children’s lives. There was a song named after the album, and in that song he said “just because I’m a man it doesn’t mean that I don’t get emotional sometime”. Also he spoke in another piece about a son who had found his father dead.

Dead: five-months-old, Kevon Critchlow

The father had shot himself in the head. When the son found his father with his brain splattered on the wall, he flipped! His screams were loud even on the funeral day. The Bishop had made a statement, “when the father pulled the trigger he also blew the brain of his son out”. This is simply to say that fathers are indeed important to their children.
Likewise when a child dies, a father’s heart becomes broken, and in some cases they are pushed to the limit of committing extreme acts (violence).
Yesterday, the parents of Keana Dey, 15, of Seventh Street, Diamond, spent Father’s Day in one of the worst ways. They had to bury their eldest daughter who passed away in the HDU of GPHC last week. The girl’s father Thomas Dey called ‘Swank’ was lost for words as he played the role of a pallbearer yesterday, carrying his daughter’s casket to her final resting place at the George Phillip Street Cemetery in Vergenoegen.
During her hospitalization, he had to play the role of a Nursing Assistant as she was left unattended for long periods by nurses on duty.
Two days before her demise, the parents were given a shock of their life when they walked the ward to see the teen bleeding profusely while nurses stayed in their station.
It was after that event that the child’s health swiftly deteriorated and she subsequently died. The parents are adamant that had the nurses been attentive to her, she would have been alive today.
Ankoma Powers, father of the teenager Allisia McPherson, who was brutally stabbed to death by her boyfriend, Shivanand Roopnarine, is still in grief knowing that his daughter will never share another Father’s Day with him, while her killer remains free.
He said “Father’s Day unlike the many others was the normal going to church and everything except having Allisia around.” He explained that not having her around was what made the day very different.
“It made it very difficult knowing what it was like before and knowing that there will never be another Father’s Day with her”. Powers reminisced on the moments he shared with his daughter.
“Last year Father’s Day she bought me presents, cooked and did all the things a parent would expect their teenage child to do for them. It was nothing that was done on the ordinary day to day base.”
He acknowledged that the police have their work to do and they may do it however they choose to do it. But he has voiced his disappointment in the length of time that they are taking in apprehending his daughter’s killer. “Some emphasis should have been placed knowing that they had tips on where the man was seen and they even know what he look like, so they had the advantage to apprehend him swiftly.”
He was very blatant in noting, “Police find who they want to find and when they want to find.” He is looking forward to justice being served as soon as possible.
McPherson was stabbed 41 times by her jealous boyfriend at a dance in the Sophia Area on April 19, 2015.
Meanwhile, Kevin Critchlow, father of five month old Kevon Critchlow, who died back in March, contacted this publication expressing the hurt he felt throughout yesterday’s observance for fathers.
He said “I am feeling sad now that it is about three months now that I lost my son… not only did I lose my son but I was charged wrongfully for accusations of me threatening nurses at the Plaisance Health Centre.”
He went on in relating what his day was like.
“I spent my Father’s Day real sad… I buried my son on the top of my father’s tomb and when I went to clean my father’s tomb, the memories of Kevon struck me and I fell. I was too weak to deal with it.”
Since the child’s death, Critchlow, who is hypertensive, has been experiencing blackouts.
Kevon died on March 27, 2015, less than 24 hours after he visited the Plaisance Health centre for his vaccine.
The family remains adamant that the child was given a wrong injection. A preliminary post mortem had indicated that the child died of brain hemorrhage, and blood samples were taken for further testing to identify what had caused the hemorrhage.
Critchlow was clearly upset yesterday at the fact that he and his wife received no justice for their baby boy.
“Up to now they can’t tell me how really my child died,” blurted out the distraught father who had to be comforted by family members yesterday.
Critchlow was charged for threatening nurses at the Plaisance Health Centre as he believed that they were responsible for his son’s death. He has since maintained his innocence and is schedule to make his third court appearance at the Sparendaam Magistrate’s Court on June 27, 2015.