Hawantee Harriram stood between the two simple white coffins bearing the bodies of her husband and her first-born son, yesterday, torn as to which one she should touch as she pleaded with them to wake up.
“My heart is hurting. I don’t know what to do anymore,” she cried as she touched their faces, feet, placed flowers in their coffins before clasping both hands in a position of prayer which she solemnly raised to her face still bearing a plaster as a reminder of the tragedy she survived and which took her loved ones away.
Hawantee threw a mixture of rice and flowers behind the two white hearses transporting the bodies to their final resting place at the Mosquito Creek, bemoaning, “I feel so empty.”
The touching scenes played out at the family’s Daily Trace, New Grant, home, yesterday, as the community came out to say a final farewell to Namdeo, 48, and Lalchan Harriram, 25, who died instantly when Namdeo’s motor vehicle skidded off the road and crashed into a 10-tonne lorry last Monday on the M1 Ring Road, Princes Town.
Hawantee and her seven-year-old daughter Tricia who were also in the vehicle survived the crash. However, Tricia is warded at the San Fernando Teaching Hospital with a broken arm and leg. She has not been told that her father and brother are dead.
Her mother told the Guardian, in an interview on Thursday, that breaking the news to Tricia was not something she looked forward to.
“We haven’t told her (about the deaths). I don’t know how we are going to be able to tell her. I have to ask God to give me the strength, first to get through the funeral and then to find the strength to tell her. After we get through this, I don’t know what we will do next. God alone knows what plans he has for us,” she said.
Pundit Anil Maharaj who officiated at the service noted how difficult it was for families to deal with the loss of one member and how much more tragic it was for this wife and mother to lose her husband and first-born son.
“It is very hard for this mother to accept the loss of her husband and her son. What is even more sad is that the daughter cannot attend the ceremony and does not know what is happening here.”
He appealed to the mourners to “live a good life and to do good. Say a prayer before you leave home because when you leave you are not sure to return.”
The Harrirams were taking two of their children, Lalchan and Tricia, to the doctor when tragedy struck.
Hawantee’s sister, former Guardian journalist Kamla Rampersad, who eulogised her brother-in-law and nephew, underscored their commitment to family life.
She said Namdeo worked hard to find a good way to provide for his wife and family, and nine years ago he chucked in all of the other jobs to join Hawantee in selling at the farmers’ market.
“Family life meant everything to him and working together with her meant they never had any reason to be apart.”
She said the market community and the vendors became an extension of the family, recalling when Lalchan suffered a broken leg in an accident four years before, how they rallied around her sister and brother-in-law, raising funds to help them through their difficult period.
Lalchan, she said, was also a family person and someone they could count on to do any task at hand.
“His is the name that was called whenever something needed to be done.”
She ended her eulogy by placing both father and son in God’s hands saying that God had a reason and a purpose for everything that has happened.
Saaheehah Mohammed, a student of the National Energy Skills Centre (NESC), where Lalchan was in his final year as an electrical installation student, also remembered him as a model student and big brother to all his classmates.
She said he possessed leadership qualities, but although he was committed to his academics he never compromised his family values and stood with his fellow students, “through thick and thin.”
Lalchan’s body was taken for a brief moment to the NESC, Ste Madeleine campus, to give his colleagues an opportunity to say goodbye.
Father and son were later cremated at the Shore of Peace, Mosquito Creek, La Romaine.