Tony Mascall unfortunately missed his wife Donna’s funeral yesterday, after doctors ruled he could not leave the hospital following a second surgery on his badly damaged left leg.
Donna was killed, during the early hours of Sunday morning, when a vehicle crashed into the couple’s bedroom along the Main Road in Palmiste, Central Trinidad.
Mascall underwent the second phase of reconstructive surgery to his left leg at the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex in Mount Hope on Thursday and was hoping he would get a chance to attend his wife’s funeral, which was held at the home of Donna’s mother, Niranjanie Wellington, at Clarke Lane, Pokhor Road, Longdenville.
But yesterday, doctors said he could not leave his hospital bed.
Speaking with T&T Guardian yesterday, however, Mascall said between Thursday night and yesterday morning, just a few hours before his wife’s funeral, he believed he got divine closure.
“I prayed and prayed and prayed and I had a visitation and I know in my heart that I got closure so it was not hard for me. What I got, what was said to me is with me. So I am comfortable in my heart and mind,” Mascall said.
Donna’s relatives were inconsolable yesterday when her body was carried into the house of mourning.
Her eldest daughter, Samantha Jeremiah, 13, could hardly stand on her own at the side of her mother’s white coffin to view her body, which was clad in a royal blue and white garb with matching headtie.
Supported by residents, Donna’s five children surrounded her coffin, including three-year-old son Andrew who was asleep on the same bed with her when tragedy struck but escaped with only minor injury.
Little Andrew, who was in the arms of a relative, was lifted over the coffin for a full view of his mother’s body. With bandages around his head and his thumb in his mouth, Andrew was seen taking quick glances at his mother’s body, unaware of the fate that had befallen her.
Neighbour Michael Mc Coon, in a short address, told the small group of mourners that Donna, like her mother, was a warm and kind-hearted soul.
He said he believed that the death was no ordinary one.
“To think the way society has become and the direction it is going is an unfortunate thing. Sometimes we just have to pause and reflect on what is taking place,” Mc Coon said.
After leaving Wellington’s house, a small service was held at the Mt Tabour Spiritual Baptist Church on Todd’s Road, officiated by senior pastor Milroy Caraballo.
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The 22-year-old driver who was involved in the fatal accident is yet to be charged, police sources said yesterday.
He was held by police shortly after his car rammed into the Mascalls’ bedroom but was subsequently released from custody after he passed a breathalyser test.