A family’s agony

Although the remains of 10-year-old Neisha Hinds have not been recovered, her mother, Marie Beckford, is convinced that the child, who was washed away while swimming at Sugarman’s Beach in St Catherine nearly two weeks ago, has died.

On July 5, two days after the passage of Hurricane Beryl, the mother agreed to send her four daughters to buy food with a neighbour, 20-year-old Beron Lee, otherwise called ‘Chris’.

Instead, Lee reportedly took them on a joyride in the vehicle of another male friend to Sugarman’s Beach in Hellshire, St Catherine, where a double tragedy would unfold.

Reports are that Neisha experienced difficulties in the water and when Lee attempted to rescue her, he drowned.

Lee’s body was recovered the following day, but Neisha’s has still not been found.

“Mi not even wah memba her, ‘cause yuh see if mi a go memba her now, it come in like it’s a weakness come in a mi body, so mi nuh really wah memba her,” Beckford said when The Gleaner visited her home in Spanish Town, St Catherine, on Monday.

“Mi wouldn’t expect it, but life goes on. What’s to be will be,” she added. “It hot. It hot. Da belly pain deh hot. It hot til it can’t talk no more. It hot like fire.”

She said the eldest of her daughters, who is 18 years old, was among the group, so she was confident that they would be protected when she permitted them to go on the road.

Lee, she said, would come to their house on weekends and he had a friendship with the family for three years, so she trusted him.

“Dem seh, ‘Mommy, wi a go out pan Old Harbour Road’, and mi seh, ‘Okay’. It’s not the first. It’s not the second. It’s not the third time, so mi think it’s out at Old Harbour dem is going. Dem usually go buy ice cream or piece a chicken and come back safely,” Beckford said, seated on her veranda.

“If dem did tell mi seh is sea dem going, mi wuda stop it, because mi know storm blow, so nobody nah go a sea or nothing like that,” she said.

Beckford said she was notified of Neisha’s possible drowning while cooking their dinner.

Harold Hinds, the father of the girls, who was working overtime that evening to provide for his family, recalled that he felt troubled when he arrived home at sunset and noticed the girls were not all not home.

He said that he kept his concern to himself because their mother said she had sent them to buy food.

Now, he is distraught.

“God Almighty know yah man. Mi just a galang,” he said on Monday, trying to put his emotions into words.

He said that before going to work that morning, the family bond was strong and the atmosphere joyful. Now, they sit in silence inside the house.

Hinds told The Gleaner that had he been at home at the time, the girls would not have left the house.

“It’s a trick ketch him (the mother), but it couldn’t ketch mi, but a nuh di first dem seh dem a go deh so and come back,” Hinds said.

One thing he will miss about his youngest child is that while frying eggs from their hens for herself, she would prepare one for him as well.

“Normally, the egg dem can’t stay in a di fowl nest,” Beckford chimed in. “She always take dem out. She is a good girl. She have behaviour. She will cook her little pot, and sometime mi affi seh, ‘Neisha, don’t go pan di stove ‘cause mi don’t want di stove blow up pan yuh.’ She will fry dumpling, too.”

The mother said that Neisha’s report card remains uncollected at the Horizon Park Primary School as it makes absolutely no sense to collect it because “she’s not here”.

In the moment, when she was first notified that Neisha could not be located, she felt like dying.

“Coming like a dead mi wah dead when mi hear that. Tru dem tell mi seh a Old Harbour Road, so mi wudn’t expect seh a over deh so dem a go,” she said.

The mother said that the eldest daughter, who was locked away in her room during the time of The Gleaner’s visit, is taking the blow very hard, primarily because she witnessed the unfolding tragedy.

Even though the authorities are still searching for Neisha’s body, the family held a candlelight vigil on Sunday night in her memory.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com