LOVERS BURIED SIDE BY SIDE

TWO DAYS before their wedding, a couple who were among four people killed in a freak accident along the Solomon Hochoy High-way last Saturday, were yesterday buried side by side in one grave — a tribute to their everlasting love — dressed in outfits they were to wear for their nuptials. “The Lord said he would cancel the earthly wedding for another wedding,” Bishop Vic-tor Hinds said to over 500 mourners who flocked to the Princes Town Open Bible Church to bid a final farewell at the funeral service for Peter Markel Henry, 23, his fiancee’ and childhood sweetheart Linicia Avril Duncan, 24, and Nadine De Bourgh, who was to a bridesmaid at the wedding.

De Bourgh’s final resting place was in a grave next to the grave in which the caskets of Henry and Duncan were placed side by side at Navet Public Cemetery. Henry, proprietor of a construction company, Duncan, who lived in the United States, De Bourgh, and Jamai-can-born pastor Horace Anderson (De Bourg’s uncle), who also lived in the US, were on their way to a gospel concert in Port-of-Spain, travelling in a rented car along the Solomon Hochoy Highway last Saturday. A truck, proceeding in the south bound lane, veered off the highway and ploughed through the grassy incline which divides the north bound lane from the south bound lane and slam-med into the side of the car, pushing it off the highway.

Anderson’s body was flown back to the United States where arrangements for his funeral are still to be finalised.
Reminding bereaved relatives that God did everything for a reason, Bishop Hinds said he had spoken to Henry about his marriage to his beloved. “He was so happy. His chest was swelling and his eyes lit up because they were in love,” Bishop Hinds said, as his voice quivered with emotion. He assured bereaved relatives that if they kept their faith in the Lord, everything would be alright. Relatives who delivered the eulogies described the trio as God fearing, respectable, loving persons who impacted on the lives of everyone they met.

During the service, the congregation celebrated the lives of the couple and their friend in song and dance. Following the service, the trio were laid to rest at the Navet Cemetery. The church was packed with relatives of the three deceased persons who came together to mourn in unity, making it impossible for reporters to find out which family (the Henrys, Duncans or De Bourghs) the mourners were from. Questions posed to some of the mourners about the identity of the crying persons went unanswered, with mour-ners either saying they were not sure, or in their grief, ignoring the questions.

Very few persons had dry eyes as the sight of the three caskets placed side by side with loved ones crying over the bodies was a powerful symbol of the love and the feeling of a sense of great loss that relatives and friends of the deceased persons were experiencing. The sombre music and songs also cast a mournful, dark pallor over the funeral proceedings. The accident which claimed the lives of the four was just one of a series of mishaps on the nation’s roads this past week which led to the death of at least eight persons, including a 92-year-old pensioner, who died after the ambulance transporting him to hospital, collided with a van along the South Trunk Road in La Romaine.