SHAR­LENE RAM­PER­SAD

Cel­isha and Fyzal Kur­ban were mar­ried for 33 years but were of­ten mis­tak­en for new­ly­weds. They reg­u­lar­ly at­tend­ed events wear­ing match­ing out­fits and one was rarely seen with­out the oth­er.

One year af­ter Fyzal’s trag­ic death in a div­ing ac­ci­dent at Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, his wid­ow cher­ish­es her mem­o­ries of him and fond­ly re­calls his cheer­ful de­meanour.

“What I miss most from him is his smile. He nev­er was sad to­wards me,” she said.

The cou­ple met 38 years ago and had three chil­dren to­geth­er. Cel­isha said every day Fyzal would find lit­tle ways to show his love and ded­i­ca­tion, mak­ing every day was like Valen­tine’s Day.

“I had for­got­ten how to make a cup of cof­fee. He did that every day for me, I miss that. Valen­tine’s was re­al­ly hard. I miss his smile, his hug. When he watched his kids, he watched them with plea­sure, lots of love,” she said.

She said their love for each oth­er in­spired their friends and fam­i­ly.

“My sis­ter can tell you that, Tri­cia, can tell you that, it’s like Aa­lyuh does move like alyuh now mar­ried eh.’ When we go on va­ca­tion, peo­ple used to think we on hon­ey­moon, even on the plane. That’s how it used to be,” she re­called with a smile.

Cel­isha said the past year has been ex­treme­ly dif­fi­cult for her with­out Fyzal at her side.

“It has been very tough be­cause first birth­day, first Christ­mas, first an­niver­sary, first of every­thing, the chil­dren’s birth­days, fam­i­ly get-to­geth­ers, but I know it’s a process I have to go through, try­ing to get bet­ter days,” she said.

She draws on the lessons he taught her and the sup­port of her fam­i­ly to try to cope with the grief.

“He al­ways used to let me know, any­thing can hap­pen, you got­ta do what you got to do and do it the right way. That’s what he al­ways said and I try to lift my head and go and just fo­cus.”

Every morn­ing, Cel­isha lights a can­dle and puts fresh flow­ers in front of a pho­to of Fyzal. It is her spe­cial way of ho­n­our­ing her hus­band’s mem­o­ry. She al­so vis­its the San Fer­nan­do Yacht Club al­most dai­ly as it was one of their favourite places to spend time to­geth­er. Some days she goes for a swim around the jet­ty and oth­er days she has a cup of cof­fee and spends time look­ing out to sea.

Berth 6 on the Paria com­pound, where the trag­ic ac­ci­dent oc­curred, can be seen from the Yacht Club. Fyzal’s boat is al­so stored there.

“I feel close to him when I come here. I get a lot of com­fort here, I have cof­fee, have a meal and it’s just a try­ing process every day, just lift my head, ask God for the grace and take an­oth­er day,” she said.

Dur­ing the Com­mis­sion of En­quiry (CoE) in­to the trag­ic ac­ci­dent, Cel­isha could not al­ways cope with the de­tails of her hus­band’s last mo­ments which were ex­am­ined, dis­sect­ed and analysed dur­ing the pub­lic hear­ings. How­ev­er, her fam­i­ly kept her in the loop.

With the CoE ex­pect­ed to de­liv­er its fi­nal re­port at the end of April, Cel­isha hopes that “all who were re­spon­si­ble for not res­cu­ing the four guys, they shouldn’t have jobs, they should be be­hind bars be­cause they did some­thing wrong and they still work­ing. They still mak­ing a dol­lar when the day done.”

At present, she said, it’s still a blame game with the buck be­ing passed from one of­fi­cial to an­oth­er.

The cou­ple’s el­dest son, Nicholas, and his broth­er Michael, both divers, had begged Paria of­fi­cials to al­low them to res­cue their fa­ther. The fact that they were not al­lowed to do so still haunts Nicholas.

“I try not to re­mem­ber too much. I try to dis­tract my­self, I don’t want to re­live it,” he said.

How­ev­er, de­spite his best ef­forts, the mem­o­ries some­times come flood­ing back, es­pe­cial­ly when he is work­ing in the wa­ter.

“Some­times, I am work­ing and my mind is just filled with every­thing that hap­pened that day. Over and over and over it plays in my head,” Nicholas said.

He got coun­selling for sev­er­al months af­ter the ac­ci­dent and says de­spite the re­cur­ring mem­o­ries, he does not be­lieve he is still trau­ma­tised. How­ev­er, he is try­ing to get out of the in­dus­try.

“I might be look­ing for a new job soon. I’m kind of stay­ing away from the wa­ter work for a while. I did it for five months af­ter (the ac­ci­dent) but I’m not do­ing any­thing right now be­cause I start to re­mem­ber too many things when I’m work­ing around the wa­ter,” he said.

Nicholas said he miss­es work­ing with his fa­ther and spend­ing time with him out­side of work. They of­ten went on fish­ing trips down the is­lands to­geth­er.

He is hap­py that a CoE was held in­to the in­ci­dent and hopes for clo­sure when the fi­nal re­port is de­liv­ered.