Saving Jacinta

Ours is a tragic age. So wrote contemporary writer DH Lawrence in The Rainbow. One woman who can attest to tragedy is Jacinta Bostic, mother of the late soca artiste Onika Bostic. While riding a crest of popularity with her mega hit All Is Yours, Bostic was involved in a vehicular accident at the corner of Erica Street and Eastern Main Road, Laventille, on December 11, 2004. She succumbed to head and spinal injuries in the intensive care unit of Port-of-Spain General Hospital at around 9 pm on December 19.

Bostic would have celebrated her 25th birthday on December 23. It’s been eight years. She was buried on her birthday. Her doting mother grieved for Bostic for five years. She admitted it was a painful odyssey. She has only now begun to come to terms with the loss of her beloved child. Interviewed on Friday, at her City Hall, Knox Street, Port-of-Spain, office Bostic said: “It’s been five years of pain. After all the excitement and everything had died down, it was very, very difficult. For about five years, the tragedy kept coming back.

“Besides speaking about it among family members, it would come back. If you hear something that would jog a memory. It was not easy to even watch a video. After five years, it became easier.” Bostic had to accept she would not come bursting through the door of their Rosalino Street, Woodbrook, home. The coy child turned soca diva would never leave a pulsating fete at St John’s, Antigua, to head to Port-of-Spain. “You can’t ignore the void that was left. Onika was not here. She was gone.” Bostic struggled emotionally to get to a place of inner peace.

“I always hear people say no parent likes to bury a child. I could relate to that now. I  know what they  have to undergo. It is something I question. Did I do something wrong? Did I falter in some areas.” Reaching for a tissue, Bostic said: “You just have to go on with life. You just try and go on.” Today, she is sustained by memories of her daughter’s fondness for dressing up, artwork, penchant for Patraj roti and avid interest in festivals ranging from Divali to Christmas.

Premonition of death
Asked if she had sensed Bostic would depart the earth in the prime of her life, she said: “I always knew she was special.” But she cautiously avoided the sentiment that her fate had been sealed. It was impossible to miss her caring character. She said: “It was strange a small child could be so caring, more than a child of that age. She would feel sorry for somebody...for strays. When my mother (Lucy Bostic) passed suddenly at home,  she recognised from one of my comments she might have been dead.

She said: “Mummy, don’t cry.” Her voice trailed. “It is always said it is children like those that don’t live.” When Bostic started earning hot dollars in the soca industry, she began to share the dividends with her family. Bostic said: “She didn’t think about herself. The first thing she did was to tile the back of the house. There are days when you walk in the back and you see the white tiles. That was why it was difficult for me to speak about her for five years. She was that kind of person.”

Bostic said she had declined previous interviews. Still grieving for her precious child, she said: “I am still not in place where I could sit and chat without breaking down. “Just imagine you have a nice little child and you are traumatised if it falls down and gets a cut in the yard. Imagine how you would react to losing a child forever.”

The zip dream
Bostic had a strange dream two months before her daughter’s untimely demise. With a mother’s intuition, she said: “I knew something was wrong. I noticed her zip was down and I fixed it. I clapped to get her attention. When she was heading back, it gave trouble again. And she decided not to go on stage.” She linked the “strange dream” to another she had before Bostic was born. There was an easygoing young man in the neighbourhood.

“I went to a play with Chinese people. When one of them took a swipe, the head fell in my lap. I didn’t take that to be a symbol of death.” But the “strange stage dream” unfolded when the young man bought a vehicle and tried it out. Sadly, he died in an accident. “That year a lot of people I knew and relatives of co-workers died.”

Thanks people for support
While Bostic fought desperately for her life, people from all walks of life turned up at her home. The prayer sessions were intense. Bostic had won hearts with hits like Mash It Up. “It was her personality,” she gushed. Before she got to a point of accepting her death, she said one particular neighbour from Venezuela made a vow “not to lose Jacinta.” She said: “I am not going to lose you. She has been there, especially in the spiritual side. I saw my mother die from grief.” She expressed thanks to people who commiserated and expressed condolences.

Bostic said: “I want to say thanks to all the people who called. Perfect strangers. Loved ones.” As the healing process has begun, Bostic said: “Sometimes you pick up a card...sometimes a booklet, maybe, a verse of scripture that someone left with you...you wonder where you would get the time to read it. “I don’t feel hurt because she was popular. Every time I see a mother has lost a child on the television... whether it is from a scorpion sting or dengue, I feel as though I could call them. I saw a mother lose her two sons, I lost one.” Bostic realised she had other children—Janiel and Marvin, and the grandchildren Jaylan, Jalani and Sian.
 

Views on driver Ninja
Among those who turned up at her doorstep was Ninja (Reynold Joseph). He was the driver. She heard rumours about his reckless driving habits. She said: “People would say he was always driving recklessly. When he came to my house, I told him just do me one favour, stop driving fast. Other people prompted me to tell him to stop driving fast.” Bostic said she held no remorse toward him. She said: “He was a friend of Onika’s and his daughter was her godchild. I don’t hold people in mind. It was not his fault.”

Bostic traced the train of events. She maintained Ninja was doing his friend a favour. As though it were yesterday, she said: “A lot of the rentals were in place. I called a friend of mine and she said she would take up her son in a party. “There was another person who offered to take her but the person had to be working and they had to go out with their boss, and that is when she decided to call Ninja. We were not getting on to her. And that is when she said to call him. It is not to say he had an opportunity to pre-plan anything.”

Bostic maintained: “I don’t have anything (ill feelings) for him at all. You hear so many stories. It began affecting his career. It was not really his fault.” Bostic maintains she was putting her faith in the Almighty. “As a simple person, it was hard for me to take all that information. I suffered from information overload. I am hypertensive. I am not brave enough. I still leave it in the hands of God.”