Senior Reporter-Investigative
jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt
For the last seven Christmases, the family of missing lecturer Glenda Charles-Harris has had to endure life without her presence, a wound that reopens yearly compounded by a lack of answers.
Sunday Guardian spoke with her daughter Helen Bergendahl via Zoom from her Swedish home. The 54-year-old mother said since the disappearance of Charles-Harris she has not returned to the country to celebrate another Yuletide season.
Charles-Harris, who leactured at the College of Science, Technology and Applied Arts of Trinidad and Tobago (Costaatt), has been missing since July 2015.
The 78-year-old mother of four was last seen alive at the Tru Valu Supermarket, Diamond Vale, Diego Martin, around 5.30 pm on July 27, 2015. Her car was found abandoned at Indian Walk, Princes Town, one day later.
Bergendahl said last year she and her siblings began the process of legally declaring their mother dead. The process is ongoing.
“Christmas was always huge in our family. Like all local families Christmas was huge in our house,” she said.
Since son, niece missing ...
‘It really don’t have
any Christmas’
Like Bergendahl and her siblings and their children, Iyana Cudjoe’s Christmas lacks a key element, family.
Sunday Guardian spoke with Cudjoe at her Blue Basin, Diego Martin home last week. Cudjoe’s son, Saleem Joseph, went missing on November 26. At the time of his disappearance, he was staying with his aunt at Superville Hill, Chinapoo Village, Morvant.
“I done say it don’t have a Christmas. Me and my son close, real close, everywhere I go he up under me so it really don’t have any Christmas.”
The 35-year-old mother of two whose birthday was on December 16, said the agony of her missing son is exacerbated by the fact that a missing relative is nothing new to the family.
On January 24 last year, Cudjoe’s niece Katisha Cudjoe went missing. Four days later the decomposing semi-nude body of a woman was found down a precipice at the Heights of Aripo. Three days after that, on February 1, the body was positively identified as that of 21-year-old Katisha.
Having to endure last Christmas without Katisha, Cudjoe is not anticipating a jolly season, for the second year in a row. Even with the memory of her niece, Cudjoe remains hopeful that she will see her son again, alive.
Asked if she believed her son was still alive, Cudjoe said yes.
“The way the country is going, people going missing, every time you check somebody going missing and then a couple of days, you’re finding a decomposed body here and there. That is heart-wrenching for me because every time I hear you find a body, the first thing that pops into my head is my child and wonder if it is him. Because the last family member who went missing, we didn’t get her back alive.”
Losing the fight to hold back her tears, Cudjoe pleaded with whoever may have her son to release him. She said what’s worse is that her daughter and son were very close, and she couldn’t comfort her because she too needed it.
“I can’t even comfort her when she is crying because I know how she is feeling. I have nothing I can say, I can’t say it would get better because, to me, it’s not. We faced this same tragedy almost a year ago and for that to happen and to go through this again, it’s not fair. I find it’s not fair.”
Joseph was last seen in Mt Hope wearing a pink hoodie, blue jeans and a pair of white and black Tommy Hilfiger slippers. His hair was combed cornrow style. Anyone with information on the disappearance of both Joseph and Charles-Harris is asked to contact the nearest police station.
‘No words to offer comfort’
For Bergendahl the torture of never having the closure that Cudjoe had last year is what pains the most. Since then, she said she and her siblings have all had some sort of ailment, be it insomnia or acid reflux after their mother, the rock of the family, vanished.
Having accepted that her mother was killed in 2015, Bergendahl said the inability to have a final send-off for her or a final resting place for the family to visit is the proverbial salt in the wound. She is comforted in one thing, her mother’s strong religious faith, which she hopes gave her comfort in her final moments.
Having been in the shoes of Cudjoe for some years more, Bergendahl said there are no words that can be said to offer comfort. Time, she said, does not heal wounds, but it makes bearing the burden somewhat easier as life must go on. The experience will, however, change anyone, for life, she said.
“For those people that don’t give the families a chance to give their members a worthy funeral where you can grieve properly, and people can unite and grieve. I think that is heartless. At least let people have that, at least let them have a burial, let them grieve. You have done the deed, we all understand that, but at least allow everyone touched by this to grieve.”
