VALDEEN SHEARS-NEPTUNE
An aged newspaper clipping of a memorial bearing the photos of her eldest son and only daughter is 62 year-old Myroon Ali’s most poignant reminder of her losses.
Ali, who sat immobile in a steel walker, pulled the yellowed piece of paper out of a floral-print cloth purse and recounted the two most dreaded days of her life as a mother of five.
She cannot remember the exact date, but recalled the last time relatives saw her son Shakeer “Sheldon” Ali, who they believe was led away by an “unknown man on a bike”.
Her daughter, Natasha “Tash” Ali, a mother of four, was shot dead during a robbery at a bar at Riverside Road, Kelly Village, on February 28, 2010.
It was a stone’s throw away from her home.
Both tragedies are marked by the ages of two of her daughter’s four children.
It has been so long since her son’s disappearance, that Ali can only mark the year according to the age of her second grandson, Rivaldo, who turned 16 this year. He was just a toddler when his uncle went missing, and Ali remembers the two as being inseparable.
She vividly remembers the death of her only daughter because the youngest of her four grandchildren, Ricardo, was only three months when their mom was killed.
Ali, who said she can walk no further than the roadway in front her Kay Street, home, lovingly stroked the clipping which carries the date of her daughter’s birth and death.
It bears, though, only her son’s birth date and the word “Unknown” in lieu of the day he died.
For her, this represents hope that “one day he will come calling by my gate, as he used to every morning”.
This sentiment, she said, is not shared by his father, Shaheed, who in 2003 went to the Police Complaints Authority and asked that investigations into his disappearance be discontinued. Ali showed the worn and creased document of the PCA, citing that the case would be “deemed closed”.
Her husband, 68, remained inside their home for the entire interview.
Every year the Christmas season is a harsh and painful reminder of her son’s disappearance. He would have turned 39 tomorrow (December 19).
“I does miss him so much for his birthday every year,” she mumbled, her eyes filling with tears.
Ali, though, quickly recovers and in the same breathe, fondly recalled him as a child, hiding away bottles of home-made amchar under the bed.
Her son, who lived a few streets away at his grandfather’s house, made it his duty to visit her every morning. Ali remembered the morning after he disappeared being visited instead by his distraught wife.
Ali’s son also met his demise close to home.
On that fateful night, Ali had donned a vest, short pants, and rubber slippers and accompanied his wife to a cousin’s home next door to watch television.
Relatives, she said, told her before the movie could begin, a man on a bike, unknown to them, called him outside.
It was the last they would see of him.
“That’s why, no matter what your age, tell somebody where and with who you going out with or going to meet. It’s the only way family can help each other and the police if something happens,” she lamented.
She recalled being in a daze and walking miles of back streets, cane and rice fields, searching for her son. Ali said she did this for months after his disappearance even when concerned villagers begged her to return to her home.
Ali said her son had no known enemies, no altercation with anyone, whether relative or friend, and was fondly remembered by all.
In fact, his disappearance, she said, was a shock to the entire community. Her son’s wife, she recalled, moved out of the family home less than a month later and has since moved on with her life. The couple had no children.
Police, she added, visited their home once when the incident first occurred.