Shar­lene Ram­per­sad

Na­tion­al foot­baller Mar­vin Phillip knelt in the church where his son was chris­tened four months ago, hold­ing on­to the in­fant's small cof­fin, un­will­ing to say good­bye to the child de­scribed by many as lov­ing and mis­chie­vous.

Phillip's ten-month-old son, Matai Phillip, who died on June 6 from po­si­tion­al as­phyx­i­a­tion af­ter be­ing placed in a car seat at his day care, was laid to rest yes­ter­day af­ter a ser­vice at the Sa­cred Heart Ro­man Catholic Church, Gas­par­il­lo.

The child was dropped off at the Anoint­ed An­gels day care at Ed­in­burgh 500, Ch­agua­nas, at around 6.15 am last Fri­day.

About an hour lat­er, the fam­i­ly was told the in­fant had been tak­en to the Ch­agua­nas Dis­trict Hos­pi­tal. When the fam­i­ly got to the hos­pi­tal, the child was al­ready dead.

At one point dur­ing the ser­vice, rel­a­tives had to re­strain Phillip, who tried to pick up the child from the cof­fin. The child's moth­er, Leslie Hall, could be heard through­out the ser­vice cry­ing out for her on­ly child.

"My ba­by! Oh god, not Tai, why my ba­by?" she asked.

When the tiny white cof­fin bear­ing Matai's body was car­ried out of the church and to the ceme­tery op­po­site, Hall al­so had to be re­strained as she at­tempt­ed to run af­ter the cof­fin. Lit­tle could be done to con­sole her as she held on­to her fa­ther and plead­ed: "Dad­dy, please don't let them take my ba­by."

A white and or­ange foot­ball T-shirt Phillip had bought for his son be­fore he left for Ar­genti­na to play a friend­ly with the host na­tion on June 4 was placed in the cof­fin along­side the child's tiny body.

In the eu­lo­gy giv­en by two of ba­by Matai's aunts – Krys­tal Jack and Sharon San­tana – he was de­scribed as ad­ven­tur­ous, lov­ing and the light of his fam­i­ly. They said that the on­ly thing that both­ered the child was when he was hun­gry.

"Matai was the most qui­et child. You would on­ly know it have a ba­by in the house if he was hun­gry," said his aunts. "Matai was what the old folks re­ferred to as a sweet­bread."

They added that even though Matai's life was short-lived, he ful­filled his pur­pose in bring­ing hap­pi­ness to the lives of those who loved him.

"He was the light of his par­ents' lives and he touched the lives of every­one who knew him with his sweet­ness and in­no­cence," they said.

Fr Al­lan Hall, parish priest of Tor­tu­ga, told the child's par­ents Matai was mak­ing his mis­chief in heav­en.

He praised the child's moth­er for giv­ing her child a strong foun­da­tion in the church as she would at­tend ser­vice with the ba­by every Sun­day, de­spite his age.

Hall said a strong re­li­gious foun­da­tion was what most youths in to­day's so­ci­ety were lack­ing. He urged par­ents to try to bring their chil­dren back from delin­quen­cy as, he added, T&T's youths had al­ready gone astray.