THE EDITOR, Sir:ON TUESDAY, January 10, I sat among hundreds of family, friends and colleagues of the late Jamie Lue, as we mourned the untimely passing of a young man so full of promise and unrealised potential. He was brutally murdered some time in those final hours of yet another year tainted with the blood of so many of our loved ones. As we came together to say goodbye to Jamie, our collective anger was as palpable as our grief.
HEARTBREAKING TRIBUTES
Somewhere between the poignant and heartbreaking
tributes in word and music offered by family members, his football coach who flew in from Maryland in the United States, his colleagues at work and his lifelong friends, I wondered, how long Lord, how long? How much longer are we going to go through these same motions, hear the same words of consolation and hear the same messages delivered by our spiritual and religious leaders of forgiveness and redemption?
As I asked myself these questions, the tears were unabashedly and unashamedly running down my cheeks, while the memories flowed of a little boy fearlessly riding his bike at breakneck speed up and down our road, confident that the 'Beware, Children at Play' sign guarding the entrance to the complex was all that was necessary to keep him safe.
And it was just about all that was necessary 20 years ago love, care, guidance, advice and admonition. This was all that was needed to keep our children safe, or so we thought in the innocence and naïveté of young parents whose approach to plans for their children was fearless optimism and confidence that if you loved them and made sacrifices for them, they would be successful and happy adults.
For Jamie's parents and indeed for some of us, only a couple weeks ago, this dream was intact. Now it is shattered. At least we had the dream. There are families among us who do not have these hopes, these dreams.
Perhaps part of the solution is to connect these two Jamaicas: those of us who still cling to hope for the future, and those of us who have no hope.
Not to do otherwise is simply unfathomable.
I am etc.,
JOAN YOUNG DAVIS
2 Carmello Drive
Kingston 8
