KEVON FELMINE

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

While many Or­toire Vil­lage res­i­dents were clean­ing and dec­o­rat­ing on Christ­mas Eve, Chris­tian­na Ram­di­al ag­o­nis­ing­ly ca­ressed the cof­fin bear­ing the re­mains of her two-year-old son, Al­lon.

With his body too de­com­posed for a view­ing, Ram­di­al, 19, could on­ly kiss a pho­to­graph of her ba­by boy stuck on his tiny cof­fin be­fore bear­ers took his body away to the grave. She even brought a few of his clothes to the ceme­tery for his hum­ble farewell. Not even the com­fort of her fa­ther, Ronald Leza­ma, could ease her pain.

Not many peo­ple at­tend­ed Al­lon's fu­ner­al at the Or­toire Vil­lage Ceme­tery in Ma­yaro on Sat­ur­day. Apos­tle Mervyn Ro­driguez of the Dunamis Apos­tolic Evan­gel­i­cal As­sem­bly lament­ed that had it not been Christ­mas Eve, more peo­ple would have shown up. How­ev­er, he said the vil­lage need­ed to pay its re­spect to the fall­en child.

"I know if it were not Christ­mas Eve, you would have seen more peo­ple, but you see hu­man-kind needs to un­der­stand what is a pri­or­i­ty. Life is a pri­or­i­ty over a sea­son be­cause the rea­son for the sea­son is life.

"Je­sus Christ said I am the way, the truth and the life, and we need to treat our lit­tle broth­er here with the same re­spect as any oth­er dig­ni­tary or any oth­er im­por­tant per­son who dies. I think the vil­lage needs to pay its re­spect," Ro­driguez said.

Allon Ramdial

Ro­driguez preached that in every­thing God al­lows to man­i­fest, there is a les­son for those in­volved. While the Holy Bible teach­es that it is ap­point­ed for man to die, Ro­driguez warned that death comes at any age. He said that is why peo­ple need to tell each oth­er the things they need to and do things be­fore they or their loved ones die. How­ev­er, Ro­driguez com­fort­ed mourn­ers, say­ing that Al­lon passed away be­fore the world could con­t­a­m­i­nate him.

"He died in his in­no­cence. No sin. That is a pas­sage to heav­en."

He said al­though Al­lon lived a short life, he touched the lives of many while oth­ers lived for half a cen­tu­ry with­out do­ing the same. He urged peo­ple to call their fam­i­ly, rel­a­tives and friends and tell them "I love you" and not take each oth­er for grant­ed.

With the thud­ding sound of dirt hit­ting the wood­en cof­fin, Ram­di­al knelt over the grave, star­ing at Al­lon's pic­ture. Mourn­ers, in­clud­ing Al­lon's fa­ther, Al Mur­phy, cov­ered the grave while his friend, Christi­na Thomas, sang a farewell song she wrote for him.

Tragedy struck on De­cem­ber 9 when Al­lon wan­dered out of his makeshift home at the Or­toire Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty. In­ves­ti­ga­tors be­lieved he fell in­to the Or­toire Riv­er and drowned. Af­ter three days of search­ing, Ma­yaro life­guards and the Hunters Search and Res­cue Team found Al­lon’s body be­tween rocks near the riv­er mouth.

Ma­yaro MP Rush­ton Paray com­mend­ed the com­mu­ni­ty who joined search teams when Al­lon when miss­ing. Paray told mourn­ers that the cir­cum­stance of Al­lon's death spoke to a big­ger pic­ture of how the coun­try deals with home­less­ness and young peo­ple.

"I am hop­ing that com­ing out of this tragedy with Al­lon, we can look at poli­cies so that not an­oth­er Al­lon has to die in this cir­cum­stance," Paray said.

Paray said he will con­tin­ue work­ing with the fam­i­ly in 2023 to get as­sis­tance from var­i­ous gov­ern­men­tal min­istries.