Strong memories of 'Pops'

Mel Cooke, Gleaner Writer

THE STEADY stream from Jane McFarlane's right eye does not run straight down her otherwise startlingly calm face. It runs across her cheek, over the flare of her nostril and to the tip of her nose. The teardrop does not fall to disfigure any of the pictures she has inclined her head to scrutinise.

Looking through the pictures, which are protected by a transparent plastic bag, McFarlane looks back at her son's school years, into adulthood.

"See we all a jerk chicken an' sell when we ready?" she points out, one picture showing a grinning young man over an open, smoking halved drum.

"Every memory strong, every one," she says when The Sunday Gleaner asks her what she remembers most about her son and what his personality was like.

She rifles through the pictures, saying, "Me gwine show you. Jovial, friendly person. See every one a dem you see him a smile, every one a dem."

She gave The Sunday Gleaner a grisly tour of the three stale blood-crusted spots - two downstairs, one upstairs - inside 11 Wilton Hill Drive, Tivoli Gardens, Kingston, where three men died in the security forces operation which began on Monday, May 24.

One of the men she did not know.

Dead son, nephew

One, who called her after he was shot last Wednesday, allegedly by the police, was her nephew Oshane 'Powie' Walker. His only words on that truncated first call were "Pops dead".

'Pops' is - was - her eldest son, 25-year-old Martin Lindsay.

"It hang up. Me call back. Him say 'Pops dead an' me get a shot in me back'," McFarlane recounted. She countered, "Tell me sey a joke yu a make." He reaffirmed, "No, Pops dead, them shot him in him chest."

McFarlane asked him his location inside the house (upstairs) and called the assistance numbers that were publicised. When she tried to call him again he did not answer.

When she entered the house, McFarlane says, "It come een like somebody tek a sledgehammer lick yu in yu head an it jus' start beat."

Outside, she sits on a chair in the sliver of shade gradually eroded by the near midday sun. She pulls out a packet of pictures, which she says were scattered some distance from her house, and rifles through memories of 'Pops' and 'Powie'.

Family business

They ran a family small trading business and lived together - when Lindsay was not with his spouse.

McFarlane would have been in Tivoli Gardens that fateful Labour Day if she was not doing the back-and-forth trek to Bustamante Children's Hospital for Children while taking care of her three-year-old son, who has meningitis.

"A dem (Pops, Powie and the unidentified man) suppose to be the last set a people dead inna Tivoli," McFarlane claims.

And she still has not seen her son's body. He was identified by a family member and his body moved to a morgue, which she visited on Thursday morning, but was told she would be called later.

The Sunday Gleaner asks McFarlane what was the relationship with her son like and she looks up sharply. "Yu can ask that? Tight man. Me an' me kids dem tight," McFarlane says.

The bond will continue after her son's death, as McFarlane plans to carry on with the business, still keeping it a family operation, even though it will not be the same without 'Pops'.

She had been on the phone with him intermittently throughout the conflict and in their final conversation, 'Pops' said, "Mommy, yu no know wha a gwaan dung yasso. Me good Mommy, me good."

That was their last quick conversation.

The bond will continue after her son's death, as McFarlane plans to carry on with the business, still keeping it a family operation