Michelle Loubon

Seat­ed on a chair, 90-year-old Badri Ramkissoon, bent his frail body over the cof­fin of his daugh­ter Ra­jwan­ti "Judy" Badri, 53, al­so called Raj. Ten­der­ly, he ca­ressed her face and said, "Badri, you were a good girl. Go to the Lord in peace." His face was a por­trait of an­guish as he looked at the body of his child. Her gloved hands clutched a pink rose.

In the back­ground, rel­a­tives hugged each oth­er. They had gath­ered to "cel­e­brate and give thanks" for Badri's life at St An­tho­ny's RC Church, Pe­tit Val­ley, yes­ter­day. When Amaz­ing Grace sub­sided, of­fi­ci­at­ing priest Fr Leo Dono­van in­vit­ed Badri's daugh­ters–Sue Mara, Mar­sha and Au­ra to pay trib­ute to "a good woman who died so trag­i­cal­ly." It was like re­open­ing an old wound.

On Ju­ly 3, 2005, they had lost their sis­ter Melis­sa Akong to a cut­lass wield­ing man who at­tacked the fam­i­ly at their mi­ni-mart on Morne Co­co Road, Pe­tit Val­ley. Their sis­ter Sue Mara Akong lost her right foot on that day. Now, they had to say good­bye to their moth­er with the knowl­edge she had ex­it­ed the earth from a hit­man's bul­let. Badri was a State wit­ness in Akong's mur­der. Be­fore dis­solv­ing in­to tears, Mar­sha Badri said: "Four years ago, I suf­fered the loss of Melis­sa. I nev­er imag­ined I would have be stand­ing here again. I have suf­fered enough. Af­ter griev­ing for about three years for Melis­sa, our fam­i­ly de­cid­ed it was time to move on.

"We were all de­vel­op­ing a bet­ter re­la­tion­ship with Raj. It hurts my heart in the way she was tak­en. She did not de­serve to die this way." Lit­tle did she imag­ine Fri­day would have been the last day she would have seen her moth­er. Mar­sha said: "Sue came. We went to Melis­sa's grave and we looked at the plants. We de­cid­ed Melis­sa was still de­com­pos­ing so we could dig her up and see if she was still there. The talk turned to graves and buri­als. I did not know if that start­ed the wheels in mo­tion."

'Get a sound ed­u­ca­tion'

Ini­tial­ly over­come with emo­tion, Sue Mara Akong spun a tale that had good be­gin­nings in Bel­mont. Their moth­er nur­tured their cre­ative and en­tre­pre­neur­ial spir­it and led them in prayer on morn­ings. Like a mantra, she en­cour­aged her daugh­ters to get a sound ed­u­ca­tion. But when the land­la­dy died, rel­a­tives dri­ven by greed stepped in and pres­sured them to leave, "even pour­ing wa­ter through their build­ing." Badri's op­tions were a two-bed­room shack in Beetham or an at­tempt to make a liv­ing with some­one which turned out "to be a night­mare come true." Clad in her Mus­lim garb, Au­ra told of Badri's love for her grand­son. "My hus­band and I would help out in the mi­ni-mart so she could get a rest," said Au­ra.