Trib­utes con­tin­ue to flow for a South busi­ness­man and his wife—the own­ers of Em­manuel Gar­den Cen­tre, who died from COVID-19 two days apart.

Em­manuel and Yvette Be­har­ry lost their bat­tle with the virus last week, leav­ing be­hind their two young daugh­ters. Em­manuel died last Thurs­day and his wife on Sat­ur­day. Guardian Me­dia un­der­stands their chil­dren are in quar­an­tine.

The cou­ple’s death has left fam­i­ly, friends, col­leagues and the com­mu­ni­ty in a state of shock and sad­ness.

The Be­har­ry fam­i­ly owned two stores, the main branch at Mara­bel­la and an­oth­er branch at Aripero Vil­lage, Rousil­lac. Fam­i­ly mem­bers were too dis­traught to speak when Guardian Me­dia con­tact­ed them, but ac­cord­ing to the cou­ple’s friends and ac­quain­tances—who ex­pressed their sad­ness over so­cial me­dia—they were kind and hum­ble peo­ple.

Among those ex­press­ing con­do­lences, Mara­bel­la South/Vista­bel­la coun­cil­lor Mar­cus Gird­harie said the es­tab­lish­ment has had a pres­ence in the dis­trict for many years. He said, “Many res­i­dents of the dis­tricts are high­ly fa­mil­iar not just with the busi­ness but Mr Be­har­ry and his wife. They will be missed.”

The coun­cil­lor al­so en­cour­aged peo­ple to con­tin­ue to get vac­ci­nat­ed to pro­tect them­selves, their loved ones and the wider pub­lic. With Christ­mas on Sat­ur­day, he took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to urge peo­ple not to en­cour­age gath­er­ings and fol­low the pub­lic health reg­u­la­tions.

So­cial me­dia was flood­ed with trib­utes for the cou­ple.

Nar­isha Ma­haraj wrote, “Ab­solute­ly loss for words. God knows best. I pray that God grant this fam­i­ly the strength to hold it to­geth­er and most of all for their kids to find com­fort and heal­ing. Rip to an amaz­ing cou­ple who were al­ways hum­ble and en­joyed in­ter­act­ing with all.”

Sharon Nichols-De­o­raj al­so post­ed, “My heart broke to­day hear­ing the news of the pass­ing of Mr & Mrs Em­manuel Be­har­ry. Words just can­not ex­press. I pray ALMIGHTY GOD’S peace rest with your chil­dren. I pray for his strength up­on them. I know you are in the arms of your Sav­ior JE­SUS CHRIST. R.I.P my friend.” Sine­ta Seucha­ran added, “Rest in Eter­nal Peace Em­manuel and Yvette Be­har­ry… we (Tropi-Mulch Ltd) did busi­ness with the Be­har­rys (Em­manuel Gar­den Cen­tre) for ten years plus, they were warm and friend­ly and would al­ways be so help­ful… I pray for their two daugh­ters that God will give them com­fort and strength to cope with the loss of both par­ents and that fam­i­ly and friends will come to­geth­er and be there for them.”

A post on the busi­ness’s Face­book page on De­cem­ber 19, con­firmed the cou­ple’s deaths.

“We thank you for your prayers and sup­port dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time and we will keep you post­ed re­gard­ing the live stream of the fu­ner­al,” it stat­ed.