Latisha Grant’s New Year’s wish is to have her five chil­dren re­unit­ed with her.

But for this to hap­pen, she needs the help of gen­er­ous Samar­i­tans so she can ex­tend the ten by eight room she cur­rent­ly calls home.

Grant, a cer­ti­fied hair­dress­er by pro­fes­sion, fell on hard times fol­low­ing the sud­den pass­ing of her com­mon-law hus­band in Sep­tem­ber, af­ter he un­know­ing­ly con­tract­ed COVID-19 while op­er­at­ing his taxi. Grant’s hus­band, John Fer­ris-Mur­ray, plied his car for hire on the Bel­mont/Port-of-Spain Taxi Stand and the ma­jor­i­ty of his pas­sen­gers were usu­al­ly peo­ple work­ing at or vis­it­ing the Port-of-Spain Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal. Al­though he adopt­ed per­son­al safe­ty mea­sures to avoid con­tract­ing the virus, Grant cried as she re­lat­ed how tragedy be­fell the once hap­py fam­i­ly.

Grant, who cel­e­brat­ed her 33rd birth­day on Wednes­day, said Fer­ris-Mur­ray had pro­tect­ed her till the end. "I was not around him when he got ill as I was vis­it­ing my youngest son. When he got sick and test­ed pos­i­tive, he called me and said do not come back. I want­ed to be there with him, but he want­ed me to be there for the chil­dren." Fer­ris-Mur­ray's health de­te­ri­o­rat­ed rapid­ly, and he died ex­act­ly 14 days af­ter con­tract­ing the virus. He was just 56.

Grant is now moth­er and fa­ther to her three daugh­ters aged 16, 12, and eight, and her two boys aged ten and five. She said she had been forced to close her small busi­ness as she hasti­ly re­lo­cat­ed the fam­i­ly from the home at Balt­haz­ar Street, Tu­na­puna, to her moth­er’s home at First Trace, Main­got Road, Tu­na­puna.

"I am home right now be­cause I had to close down and I haven’t been able to catch my­self fi­nan­cial­ly to go back to work. Right now, I am liv­ing in a ten-by-eight room, it is very small, and I could not even think about Christ­mas."

Claim­ing she and the chil­dren had been left vir­tu­al­ly pen­ni­less af­ter her hus­band died, Grant said she has had no choice but to let the three youngest chil­dren stay with rel­a­tives. She said the two el­der girls re­mained with her, but she is un­cer­tain how much longer she can sus­tain the unit.

Be­sides food and cloth­ing, Grant’s next most ur­gent need is get­ting two rooms con­struct­ed where she lives. "That is the main thing I need right now. I do not mind hav­ing a place of my own even if it does not have any­thing in it, but I will be able to bring my chil­dren to­geth­er to be with me."

Grant de­scribed her cur­rent liv­ing arrange­ments as a jail cell, she said it could bare­ly ac­com­mo­date her and her two daugh­ters.

Ad­mit­ting her moth­er had not been able to help more than she al­ready has by al­low­ing her to build on the fam­i­ly’s land, Grant is ap­peal­ing for do­na­tions in the form of con­crete blocks, ce­ment, sand, grav­el, and iron so she can put up a struc­ture.

Proud her five kids are all in school, Grant said their fu­tures were not as­sured when school re­opens on Jan­u­ary 4, 2021. She lament­ed be­ing un­able to pro­vide de­vices for the chil­dren to en­gage in on­line school­ing.

In­di­cat­ing the en­tire fam­i­ly "just need things," she added, "I need help. Right now, I need dire help. No­body knows how frus­trat­ing, de­press­ing, sad this is.

"Some­times I don’t even want to come home and see these chil­dren like this…un­com­fort­able. I am fight­ing so hard to make it some­thing, but it feels like the more you strug­gle, you just can’t get through. I just want a place to call my own and keep my chil­dren safe and com­fort­able."

Any­one wish­ing to as­sist can con­tact Grant at 345-1654.