‘Jason now with angels’

“Even though Jason lived for only seven years I feel as though he gave enough joy and love to last a lifetime,” cried his half-sister, Sherena Jokhan, as she delivered the eulogy at his funeral service yesterday.

Jason Lawrence, a pupil of Orange Valley Government School, was burnt to death when a lighted candle sparked a fire which completely destroyed his parents’ home at Endeavour Road, Chaguanas, last Wednesday night. His three brothers and sisters escaped unhurt. Staring at the picture of Jason on top of a sealed white casket which contained the child’s charred remains, Jokhan said God sent Jason to fill the heart and minds of many with love. The woman sobbed that Jason was loved by all who knew him. Jokhan, who along with her two sisters took care of Jason since he was a baby, took solace in the belief that her brother was now in the hands of God.

This sentiment was shared by his school teacher, Lisa Caesar, who said as she looked to the sky: “I know you are sitting with the angels in heaven looking down on us smiling and asking: ‘What are these people doing here? What are they saying?”. Sitting around the casket, at their Orange Valley, Carapichiama, home yesterday, Sherena, her sister Shalina and their mother, Rohanie Balack, (Jason’s mother) cried uncontrollably, with the two sisters resting their heads on top of the casket and embracing his picture.  At one point Shalina collapsed and had to be assisted by relatives. Lawrence’s eldest brother, Bryan,13, who saved his three other siblings from the fire, also broke down in tears as he sat alone looking on at the service.