Community volunteer in Spaldings loses mother to COVID-19 in US

President of the Spaldings District Area Committee, Lascelles Simmonds, is a broken man. His dream of reuniting with his mother, Gloria Samuels, was shattered as news came that she died of coronavirus in New Jersey, United States.

Simmonds, in an interview with The Gleaner, said he is still struggling to come to grips with the fact that his mother has passed and he did not get a chance to say goodbye.

“I’m numb, blank. I think up to now I am still in denial,” he said, sharing that the last time he spoke with his mother was two weeks before her death. He said that her passing took him by surprise.

“When I spoke to her, she was doing alright, but the COVID-19 came on sudden and she didn’t live long after,” he said, noting that she succumbed to the virus on April 16.

What is worse for the man, who has been at the forefront of community service, is that he was denied the opportunity to pay his final respects at her thanksgiving service.

Speaking about his beloved mother, who was 90 at the time of death, Simmonds said he is grateful that she got the chance to live a full life and that her life impacted a lot of people.

He said that it was his mother’s “giving spirit” and the fact that she always made a difference in the lives of others that influenced his decision to get involved in community work.

“She was that type of a person, and it was only natural that her spirit of volunteerism and caring nature would have rubbed off on me,” he said.

Samuels who was born and raised in Kingston, left to settle in Clarendon before migrating to the United States in the late ’90s.