- Ian AllenFive-year-old Nicholas Webb, centre, leans on the shoulders of his two brothers for support while at school last week. At left is eight-year-old Mikhail and 14-year-old Canute Jnr. Gunmen killed the boys' parents in 1998.
Erica Virtue, Staff Reporter
VALENTINE'S Day is supposed to celebrate love. But, at best, it can only now offer a memory which has managed to unite three young boys in grief.
Fourteen-year-old Canute, eight-year-old Mikhail and five-year-old Nicholas Webb, like many other Jamaican children, are victims of an unending tide of often inexplicable violence.
The Webb boys were orphaned in a moment of savagery on February 14, 1998. Gunmen opened fire on their parents, Canute and Veronica Webb, and their 15-year-old sister Elaine, in Hope Flats, St. Andrew. When they left, three little boys, then ages 11, six and three, were all that remained of the Webb's immediate family.
But the Webbs' tragedy is not unique. Seventeen-year-old Gregory Wee Tom could be considered luckier, because although in one blow he lost three close female members of his family, he still has a father.
The lives of his mother, aunt and grandmother were snuffed out, as gunmen sprayed bullets on the trio, in a drive-by shooting in St. Catherine in April. They were returning from an Easter night church service, hours after they all re-committed their lives to God.
There are hundreds more horrors like that in Jamaica, in the last 25 years. Unconfirmed reports indicate it may even be thousands. And the parentless children have a hard time battling back. Some get help. Months after the murder of the Webbs, the children, who were attending school in August Town, were admitted into Hydel Schools, on full scholarships. Hydel has undertaken to educate, outfit and feed them until they complete high school.
Director of the Hydel Group of Schools, Hyacinth Bennett, describes the Webb boys as "miracle children," for their strength, and the way they have coped with their individual blows.
"We here at Hydel, embrace them. We share and understand the pain, and so we give extra, special attention," she said.
Pain
The pain is evident on Canute, the eldest Webb boy.
"I miss my mommy," he said, with upturned palms, the sadness screaming from alluring, brown eyes. "I just miss her."
The teen has been transformed into a major male figure in his siblings' life. The other being the Webb boys' proud uncle, who has taken in the boys, who are his brother's children.
Struggling to hold back tears, Canute shared his dream with The Sunday Gleaner, a common one for boys his age.
"I want to be a pilot," Canute explained. "I want to fly planes as big as Air Jamaica."
He has no plans for revenge.
"No. The Bible says you must forgive," he said.
Mikhail, now eight and in grade three, was six when his parents were gunned down. He talks about the night of horror, without emotion.
When they shot mommy and daddy, they were not dead and were trying to escape. The gunman turned back and shot them again to make sure they were dead," he recalled.
He said Nicholas, three at the time, slept in the same bed with their parents and when the shooting was over, he climbed off the bed and began following the gunmen out of the house.
Although he was not sure of what he wants to become, he is sure those who killed his parents would be punished.
The people who killed mommy and daddy and Elaine won't get to heaven," Mikhail said.
Nicholas, now five, is still turning some of his "Gs" backwards and writing a "D" for a "B".
"I like to draw, and colour," he said.
His class teacher Pansy English said, he is a normal five-year-old, fighting for teachers' attention, much like his 22 classmates. He often walks around helping others to finish their work, after completion of his, she said.
According to Canute, the three of them received professional help from a psychologist at the University Hospital of the West Indies, twice per week, for a year after their parents' death.
They now receive counselling from Hydel's guidance counsellors, Mrs. Bennett said.
Staying together
Several persons have expressed interest in adopting the boys as individuals, she explained, but their uncle Herbert Webb refuses to have them separated. At least one person, however, is willing to adopt all three boys, she said.
The Sunday Gleaner was not able to contact Mr. Webb by telephone last week.
The Webbs' grief is similar to Gregory Wee Tom's. The grade 11 student is trying to come to terms with the sudden death of three important women in his life in one night.
"They were in the wrong place at the wrong time," he said of his mother, aunt and grandmother, who were shot dead on March Pen Road on Good Friday night. He has a dim view of his home country.
"Jamaica is just gone from bad to worse," he added, trying to rationalise the senseless murder, still fresh in his mind.
With no thoughts of avenging their deaths, he is consoled with hope.
"I live with the hope of seeing (mother, aunt and grandmother) again...," he said.
The Children Services Division of the Ministry of Health said figures on the number of children orphaned through violence and in the state's care, was not readily available last week.
Checks with the Papine police on Wednesday indicate that no breakthrough had been made in the Webb murders, while Gregory said as far as he was aware two men were held in connection with the shootings of his mother, aunt and grandmother.
