Payne Land mourns a good son

Anastasia Cunningham, Senior Gleaner Writer

Residents of Payne Land, Kingston 13, are grieving over the death of 13-year-old Gawayne Watson, who perished in a motor vehicle accident on the Mandela Highway in St Catherine on Sunday afternoon.

About 2:30 p.m., a busload of residents were on their way to a funeral in a Hiace minibus when on reaching Central Village in Spanish Town, a tyre blew out and the bus got out of control, crashed into a side rail, and overturned.

Chaos ensued.

"Mi coulda only bawl out 'Jesus! Jesus!'," said Gawayne's cousin, Marsha Allison.

"A just pure 'Mi dead! Mi dead!' mi deh pon," said Stacy-Ann McLeod.

They said when the bus landed, they only saw when the driver jumped out through the window and ran.

Several persons came to their assistance and passers-by took the injured to the hospital. It wasn't until the bus was rolled over that they realised Gawayne was dead.

Turned back

They said when word reached those who had gone ahead, everyone turned back and did not bother to attend the funeral. And when word got back to the community, the weeping and wailing became even more deafening.

When The Gleaner visited the area yesterday, several persons were still discussing the incident. Telltale signs of bandages and bruises revealed many had been passengers on the bus.

"All now me still can't believe," said Gawayne's mother, Ann-Marie Nelson. "Mi neva want him go, yuh nuh. Mi did just have a bad feeling."

When her daughter called her with the news, she said she almost passed out.

Despite being the fifth of her 10 children, she said Gawayne was her "heartbeat".

Expressing that football was his life, Nelson said her son always told her that it was football that was going to take them out of their poverty.

She held on to his little brother. "You see him, him always a encourage him to live a clean life. Fi follow him and only go after the positive things."

The grieving mom said her son was so close to her, he shared her every emotion. "Him pray wid me, bawl wid me. Gawayne was everything in this world to me."

anastasia.cunningham@gleanerjm.com