Tearful send-off for Baby Akilon

Baby Akilon Glasgow lived for only three days, but the impact  of his short life and the joy he brought to his family was remembered at his funeral service on Friday. Nekeisha Henry, who had given birth to him just seven days earlier, was inconsolable as she sat near the tiny white coffin during the service at the Elite Funeral Home, Newlands, Point Fortin. 

When she was asked by the infant’s father, Akil Glasgow, if she wanted to see the baby one last time, she moaned loudly and covered her face with her hands. Glasgow then walked over to the coffin, lovingly touched the baby’s face and held his tiny hands before closing the coffin. “This is a precious little gem in this box,” Henry’s cousin Jade Bowen said before she called on mourners to sing the hymn, Jesus Loves the Little Children.

Bowen urged Henry and Glasgow to draw their strength from Jesus Christ and help each other through their time of sorrow. “We want to give God thanks for the life of baby Akilon, short as it may be. God does not make mistakes. He knows the beginning to the end. Whatever He does He knows the reason. When you put your trust in God, put your full trust and confidence in God and He will bless you with something better, something additional,” Bowen said.

Henry’s cousin, Reverend Glenn Forde, struggled to keep his composure as he delivered the sermon. He said the baby’s death was a mystery and he urged the grieving parents to remember that God is always in control and had reasons for taking the baby after a short time on earth. “God is a mysterious God. We do not understand what really did happen, but he gives us hope and life ever lasting,” Forde said. “He says to us today, ‘I will never leave you, I will never forsake you. I am your comforter.”

Following the service little Akilon was laid to rest at the Point Fortin public cemetery.