…the effects of domestic violence on children
By Lakhram Bhagirat
“Every night them children does wake up and call fuh mommy and start cry. Them accustomed to me so I does get up and give them the tea and put them back to sleep, because that is what she use to do when she was alive and them custom to that,” says Jacklyn Henry when I asked how her grandchildren are coping after their mother’s death.
Jacklyn’s daughter, Tovanie Simmons, was fatally stabbed by her ex-husband at approximately 23:20h on June 21, 2018. She is survived by four children: eight-year-old Marcia Lyte, six-year-old Marica Lyte and four-year-old twins Malique and Miles Lyte.
Jacklyn explains that her daughter and son-in-law, Imran Lyte, had a very good relationship and she never knew Imran to be
an abusive person. She related that he was always nice to her and would go out of his way to provide for his family. Jacklyn said over the years she would occasionally stay with the couple whenever she visited from neighbouring Suriname where she lived and her daughter never complained of being abused nor did she witness any such act.
Prior to June 21, Imran confronted Tovanie about having her friends laugh at his new girlfriend and then they became involved in a physical altercation after which her sister intervened. Subsequently, her was passing and became involved resulting in Imran stabbing him and escaping. Imran’s relatives pleaded with Tovanie not to involve the Police in the incident citing his financial position at that time.
On the fateful day, Imran visited Tovanie’s Limlair Village, Corentyne home to discuss a misunderstanding between him and her brother, but then became involved in an intense argument with the 28-year-old. This resulted in him whipping out a knife from his pants waist and stabbing her several times. Jacklyn was there when the incident occurred and she screamed for help and her daughter barely managed to run out of the house, jumped from the veranda, and ran about 200 metres east before she fell to the ground.
Imran then ran behind Tovanie and slit her throat before fleeing the scene to hide out in the backdam area of the village. She was rushed to the New Amsterdam Hospital where she was pronounced dead on arrival. She sustained 12 stab wounds to her neck, left breast, back, left hip, left forearm, right chest and chin, collectively. According to Jacklyn, what Imran did next was an act of cowardice: he consumed Gramoxone and died a few days later while receiving medical treatment.
After her daughter’s life was taken, Jacklyn was forced to move into the home to take care of the four children. The young children have not been able to process properly what transpired and would ever so often look for their mother. Her grandmother has tried her best to explain to them that their mother is gone and could never come back to them, but there is only so much that they understand at that tender age.
“Me daughter is now gone and them mother gone. I is the only body them got right now and I got to stand up for them. I does try tell them what happen so they can understand. The two big one them understand what happen, but the two boys does ask and then in the night is when I does got to worry when them does get up and cry. It does hurt me to know that they have to grow up without she and I am old too, so I don’t know what will happen when I gone from here. I does worry real bad,” Jacklyn tells me.
The children asking questions constantly interrupted our chat but that did not bother either of us. Jacklyn is patient with her grandchildren and she treats them like fragile possessions. The love they have for her is evident, but you can feel the sense of loss whenever Jacklyn speaks. The children cannot articulate what and how they feel about losing their mother and subsequently their father, but it is fair to say growing up will be a battle for them. I cannot even begin to imagine how they feel and I think no one ever will be able to.
A few days before their father died, he requested that they all visited him in the hospital, but Jacklyn told me that she initially refused to allow them to meet him because of the anger she felt towards him, but she was eventually persuaded to send them. Her sister facilitated the visit and Imran held his children and begged their forgiveness for making them orphans. He cried bitterly, Jacklyn says, but the children did not understand what he meant when he told them “daddy is going to join mommy now, me going away for good.”
Imran would die the following day.
When I asked Jacklyn if she forgave Imran, she paused, inhaled, exhaled deeply, sighed and then said yes.
“I done forgive he long time. He was a good bai and I don’t know what make he do this, but I forgive he. Let he soul rest and only God can judge he. I am sad he do what he do but I forgive he, I forgive he.”For now, the primary focus is getting the children settled. In addition, Jacklyn is preparing the twins for nursery school which they will be starting in September. (Guyana Times Sunday Magazine)
