By Vanessa Cort

A WEEK ago, Sunday, I cremated my son, Ishmael. He was seriously injured when the car he was driving spiraled out of control, hit a culvert and ended up on its side in the trench.

According to the occupants of the car he overtook, who not only witnessed the accident, but were the ones who subsequently got him out of the car, he was speeding. They estimated he was driving close to 150 kilometres (about 94 miles per hour), and was attempting to overtake a truck when he lost control of the car.

Ironically, I always thought of my son as a careful driver, but then I realised this was because he would exercise the utmost caution when I was in the car, and I was often impressed by his ability to fit into tight spaces with relative ease.

He was 30 years old and a twin. His sister, Rakel, is married with a toddler, and lives in Utah in the US. It was touch-and-go whether she would get an early flight, so that we could arrange a timely funeral. The same was true for her older sister, who had a disastrous connection from Wisconsin, which saw her being delayed for 15 hours in Miami.

Thankfully, they both made it by Saturday, and we immediately completed the funeral arrangements, setting the date for the following day, Sunday, August 13. It rained early in the day, briefly, and my eldest daughter, who was with me at the parlour along with two friends, urged me to ‘take your wetting’, considered blessings, so I walked out into the rain for a few minutes. After the shower, the sun came out in all its glory.

It all began when I was awoken in the early hours of that fateful Sunday morning, with what must be a question every mother dreads, ‘Are you the mother of Ishmael Cort?’ It sets off alarm bells, as it is usually asked by the police when there is trouble. But, to me, the question was even more ominous, as it was the same question asked of me six weeks prior when Ishmael crashed in his own car, which was irreparably damaged, though he escaped with minor injuries. He was not at fault, and I have yet to collect the agreed-upon sum from the company, K&P Project Management, whose truck hit my son’s car.
So, when I got this call, my hackles rose when the caller said my son had been seriously injured in a car accident, and they were awaiting an ambulance to take him to the nearby Diamond Hospital. Still confused and mystified, I told the caller my son no longer had a car, and asked if he had been knocked down. The answer was short, “Your son was driving a white car.”

In a state of shock, I woke my eldest daughter, who I was visiting at the time, to tell her the awful news, and completely broke down, as, deep inside, I felt my son would not survive this time, particularly because I thought I heard the young man say that my son’s skull was cracked, which turned out to be me mishearing what was said.

Nevertheless, I felt that Ishmael would not escape this time. I felt the previous accident had been a warning, and told him so on many occasions. And the Guyanese saying, ‘wuh miss ya doan pass yuh’, kept replaying in my head. Evidence of this is that he had been to a party with friends, who dropped him back home. He waited until they were out of sight, and went back out in his brother’s brand-new white Toyota Axio.

I suspected he was speeding to get the car back home, as he took it while his brother, wife and young son were asleep, and knew that his brother would never have approved of his going out again, under his obvious intoxication from drinking alcohol at the party. But this was pure speculation. Neither I nor anyone else would truly know. What I felt sure of was that ‘the devil’ had whispered in his ear, ‘telling’ him to go back out in the car, and then to speed home before it was discovered missing.

Now I am faced with grieving the unspeakable loss of my son, and also remembering the words I had spoken so many times before, that I never wanted to be in the position of having to bury any of my nine children. Today, I have eight, and the pain of that loss is acute.

I am now having to internalise the words of the Compassionate Friends Organisation, who say, “The pain of grief is extremely intense as parents digest the finality of never seeing their child again, and the loss of future hopes and plans.”

This feeling was actually devastating my youngest daughter, who kept asking me, “Mummy you mean I will never see his face again; ever?”
It’s a question I have yet to come to grips with.
In addition, the organisation tells us, “Although painful and difficult, expressing grief is vitally important; it helps a parent work through the pain of the loss.” But no one can tell you how long this is going to take, beyond saying that in time, the pain will become less intense.
I do, however, take heart from the view expressed by Compassionate Friends that, the love I have for my son is “not severed”, though the relationship will now continue in a different context, for it is not how he died, but how he lived.