By Robert Lalah, Staff Reporter 
Six of seven children of Ann-Marie Graham, who was killed along with five others in a taxi at Kent Village near Bog Walk, St. Catherine, last Monday morning. - Norman Grindley/Staff Photographer
IN THE normally serene community of Byndloss, St. Catherine, sits a small two-bedroom house where the tear-stained faces of its residents tell the tale of a broken family.
The home is that of 39-year-old Ann-Marie Graham, who died tragically on December 20, when the car in which she was travelling collided with a Leyland truck in Kent Village, near Bog Walk, St. Catherine. The collision killed six of the car's passengers, including Michael Lewis, the father of four of Graham's seven children.
Three days after the tragic accident, Graham's now or-phaned children were still grappling with their loss. When The Gleaner visited the family yesterday, Graham's 61-year-old mother Eugene McCarthy, who has now become the head of the household, struggled to find the words to describe her loss.
With a distant look in her eyes, she fiddled with a loose thread on her blouse as she recalled the moment she was awakened to the news that her daughter had been in an accident.
"It was about 5 o'clock Monday morning and me was sleeping. The phone ring an' wake me up. It was mi grand-daughter calling to say she just hear dat har mother was in an accident up di road," she began.
Ms. McCarthy said she jumped out of bed and hurriedly took a taxi to the point where the accident had occurred. It was there that her worst fears were realised. Lying lifeless amid the mangled remains of the taxi she had taken to get to Kingston only a few minutes earlier, was her daughter Ann-Marie.
"Mi nuh able fi explain how mi feel. Mi nuh know wah fi say. It really grieve mi. She was mi only daughter and mi love har. Nothing can happen to me, only Marie," she lamented.
Now Graham's seven children Javene, Trevaughn, Javane, Alex, Chaz, Serika and Sherill, who range in ages from 2 to 23 years are left to piece together their lives that were torn apart in the blink of an eye.
Today is baby Javene's second birthday. Where balloons, cake and gifts would normally have been, now lay pictures of the deceased matriarch of the family; a telltale sign of a family struggling to come to grips with a sudden loss.
"Di baby cry regular fi har mother. When me start cry she start cry and it just go round so," said McCarthy in a shaky tone.
TALKATIVE YOUNGSTER
Young Trevaughn sat quietly by his grandmother's side as she spoke. When she began speaking about Christmas, the talkative youngster instinctively began to speak.
"Mummy seh she did a go buy me and di baby and mi breda dem new clothes and shoes fi di Christmas," he said, his voice trailing off at the end as his grandmother squeezed his arm; a reminder that there would be no gifts from his mother this year. After this, young Trevaughn became silent, looking silently off into the distance.
As the team from The Gleaner bade the family farewell, Ms. McCarthy made a defiant statement. "It a go tuff. But di likkle hustling a go tek care a we. Mi not giving away any a di pickney dem. Not one," she proclaimed.
