By: La’Wanda McAllister
Christmas morning arrives gently in many homes, the smell of food on the stove, familiar laughter, phones lighting up with greetings from loved ones near and far.
For Denise Josiah, the season has become a painful reminder of absence. Another Christmas has come without her son, Teejay Roxroy Prince, and with it, the same unanswered questions that have haunted her family for more than three years.
Teejay, a 31-year-old of Buxton, East Coast Demerara, disappeared in December 2022. He was last heard from on December 14, and by December 17, concern turned into alarm when all contact stopped. For Denise, the silence was terrifying. Her son, she recalled, used to contact her every day. If a message or call did not come, it was never without reason.
What followed was a frantic search marked by uncertainty, rumours, and fear. Despite reports made and the involvement of the Guyana Police Force, Teejay’s whereabouts remain unknown. Over time, whispers of foul play began circulating within the community, but no definitive answers ever reached his family. Each passing year has only deepened the pain, turning hope into something fragile and exhausting.
As Christmas approaches, Denise said she does not decorate or prepare for celebration. She avoids the traditions she once cherished, choosing instead to work through the holidays. The season, she says, has lost its meaning without her son.
“I really don’t celebrate no Christmas no more, because I can’t. I go in and work. I work the whole holiday. I ain’t celebrating nothing,” she said.
The emotional toll of Teejay’s disappearance has extended beyond grief. Denise revealed that the loss has fundamentally changed how she lives, and how she loves. Fear has crept into places where comfort once lived, shaping her relationship with her remaining children.
She shared that she now finds herself afraid to love them freely, terrified that opening her heart fully could leave her vulnerable to losing another child.
“I just finished praying… and I telling God, ‘Father God, you didn’t give me a spirit of fear. You give me a sound mind,’” Denise said. “I want you to take away this fear, because I even frightened… frightened to show love to my big son. I love my children so much now, but now, like, I scared for even love them, because I am scared that I might lose… that they too is going to go.”
That fear, she explained, follows her constantly, a quiet anxiety that never fully rests.
The family’s search for answers has also been met with silence and resistance. Denise said attempts to pursue further information have been discouraged, including efforts made by a woman who tried to inquire on the family’s behalf while in Guyana. According to Denise, she was told by police sources to stop raising the matter altogether.
“They said, leave it alone. Don’t try to do nothing or raise nothing,” Denise recounted. “So I would never get justice for my child”, the woman said as she broke down into tears.
She described a climate of fear in Buxton, where people are reluctant to speak openly, afraid of repercussions and powerful figures allegedly linked to the case. Denise believes this fear has helped keep her son’s disappearance unresolved.
“People scared,” she said. “It is like there is hold over everybody…Nobody can get justice.”
The lack of answers has left Denise questioning not only what happened to her son, but why families like hers are left to suffer without closure.
“When they take your loved one away, that’s not the end of everything,” she said. “That’s the beginning of suffering for the mother of that child.”
She said that she dreams her son very often and that adds more to her pain.
“Every time I dream him, he keeps telling me he is under a flooring, he is still there and he never left”, she said as she uncontrollably wept.
As Christmas Day arrives, Denise’s wish remains unchanged. She does not ask for celebration or comfort, only for truth. She wants to know what happened to her son, where he is, and why his disappearance has been allowed to fade into silence.
Until then, Christmas will continue to pass quietly in her life, not marked by joy, but by waiting, prayer, and a mother’s unyielding love for a son who never came home.
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