A 52-year-old mother of eleven is praying for faith and strength as she now gears up to deal with the loss of a second child, 14-year-old Makida Quick who was on Sunday killed in an accident caused by a speeding and reckless motorcyclist.
It was only in 2019, the woman’s 18-year-old son Olijah Chesney, a member of the Guyana Defence Force (GDF), was murdered.
“Now I leave back with nine children,” laments Melissa Vossey, a teacher.
It was reported that on Sunday at around 12:30h, Quick was riding her bicycle in her community at Sophia, Greater Georgetown when she was struck down and killed by a speeding motorcyclist who is suspected to be unlicensed. The 21-year-old rider was at the time lying down while he operated the motorcycle – a position that is known as “the butterfly”. He is currently hospitalised under police guard.
The accident was witnessed by the 14-year-old’s younger sister who was riding alongside her sibling on a separate bicycle. The duo were going to visit their grandfather who lives nearby.
“I get a call that say from a boy, ‘Come Auntie, I want tell you something. He say Makida just get knock down and I said ‘oh shit’,’. So I asked Sarahfina (younger sister) wah went wrong and then she said Makida did stand up in the corner cause this boy did riding a motorcycle and doing the ‘butterfly’ where he lie down on the motorcycle…Makida stand up in the corner and waited fuh let he pass and this boy just come in the corner and knock Makida down, pitch she up in the air,” the mother recalled.
“She go up in the air with the bicycle and the bicycle come down first and then she come down behind the bicycle,” the mother further explained.
For the 52-year-old mother, the pain of losing her little girl is too much to bear especially since she is still recovering from the murder of her 18-year-old son.
“My son was murdered in 2019, the soldier boy who was murdered in Tucville and I aint getting no justice here and so this is the second person. He case ain’t start yet and now another case here,” the mother contended. In October 2019, a 17-year-old was sent to the Juvenile Holding Centre for the murder of the GDF member.
“So, I don’t know how really, I gonna deal with that so I just asking God for faith and health and strength. It ain’t easy, who feels it knows it in life,” the mother expressed.
“God don’t sleep at all. And I got to get justice for both of them,” she contended.
Speaking with this publication, the grieving mother also had a message for reckless road users, especially motorcyclists.
“These young boys that riding these motorbikes here, they need to stop lying down on these motorbikes, they need to stop standing up on these motorbikes and look out even for a dog and a donkey…”
Meanwhile, the 52-year-old posits that she will turn her attention now to looking after her other children, with hopes that they live to see better days ahead.
“I gonna try with the rest of children and let them be somebody in this life. They have to make themselves some body…I trying with them,” the mother explained.
