A story of triumph over pain, setbacks

One year and two months after she lost the love of her life and father of her two children in a freak accident, Tanisha Reid has learnt to deal with the pain while she continues the legacy they started together.

Gerief Phillips, aka ‘Chicky’, was returning home on October 29 after putting his goats to graze, when he fell into a 16-foot open pit which was full of water due to heavy rains.

For Reid, who had their seven-month-old son at the time and had not yet recovered from the loss of her mother the year before, the pain was magnified.

“I was devasted when I went to the hospital and saw that he had died. I was still hurting from the death of my mother, and now him – two persons that were close to me,” she related, adding that she had to keep telling herself to be strong and think smart, knowing that a lot of persons were depending on her.

“The thought of being a single mother played with my emotions. Of course, I had to just tell myself, ‘You have to do this, no one is gonna do it for you’,” Reid shared.

Even in the midst of her pain, Reid was thinking about how to cushion the blow to Phillips’ children. While he was alive, two of his four ‘outside’ children lived with them and after his death, Reid knew she could never part with them.

“I had one of his daughters from she was three months old ... even before we shared a child together. I went through everything with her – the clinic runs, the fevers at night, the teething, first steps, first day at school, her first words. So, of course, I developed a bond with her for over 11 years. After her father died, there was no option for her to be anywhere but right here with me,” Reid, who operates a goat farm in Canaan Heights, Clarendon, shared.

She said one of Phillips’ son’s mother came the following morning after his death for him and he told her he was staying.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Reid said the love she has for them is no difference from that of her biological children, and so as challenging as it was, she never for one moment thought of not having them with her.

“We are living as one family and the only thing that is missing is their dad,” she said simply.

Reid, who has a passion for volunteerism, was working as a youth club assistant with the Clarendon Youth Information Centre when the accident occurred. She said she had to make the difficult decision of giving it up, as she could not monitor the goats and work at the same time.

According to her, despite all that she was going through, she wanted to defy the odds and do good for herself and the children.

Her brother, after the death of their mother, came to live with her, and he was eager to assist her with the children.

“He was still my responsibility, so I had five children in all to care for,” she shared.

Reid said her belief in God and inner strength saw her through the tough times, and the knowledge that “if God takes you to it, He will take you through it”.

It helped, also, that her mentor and the person who gave her and her late partner a start in the goat-rearing business, Lincoln Weir, proved to be a solid rock of support for her.

Reid said Weir was with her every step of the way, reassuring, supporting and helping the children through the rough patch.