Family, friends say goodbye to ‘Saydee’ days before eighth birthday

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Just five days be­fore An­gel­i­ca Saydee Jo­gie would have turned eight years old, hun­dreds gath­ered—not to cel­e­brate her birth­day, but to bid farewell to a child who was re­mem­bered as be­ing full of warmth and love.

At her Mon­key Town, Bar­rack­pore home yes­ter­day, feel­ings of grief and sor­row were over­whelm­ing as fam­i­ly mem­bers and mourn­ers paid trib­ute to “sweet Saydee.”

“Mum­my loves you,” wept her moth­er, Sal­isha Jo­gie, as she ten­der­ly ca­ressed her daugh­ter’s face and kissed her in her glit­ter­ing cof­fin, adorned with pink and pur­ple but­ter­flies, with a stuffed toy placed in­side.

The moth­er would lat­er re­count feel­ing “hope­less” as she wit­nessed the trag­ic end to her daugh­ter’s life.

The cof­fin stood in front of a dec­o­ra­tive dis­play fea­tur­ing her pho­to­graph, with pink, lilac and pur­ple bal­loons. Two pil­lars adorned with leaves and flow­ers framed the area, and Saydee, as she was com­mon­ly called, was dressed like a princess.

The child was killed on April 8 at Pi­geon Point Beach in To­ba­go af­ter be­ing struck by a run­away jet ski while va­ca­tion­ing with her fam­i­ly. Her fa­ther, Arnold, and her un­cle were al­so in­jured in the in­ci­dent.

Sup­port­ed by her hus­band Arnold, Jo­gie tear­ful­ly re­called how her daugh­ter spent her last day, say­ing she was “su­per ex­cit­ed” about the trip. “The day be­fore we left, she told one of her grand­moth­ers, ‘Ma­ma, I am go­ing to have a time’.”

She said on the day of the in­ci­dent, the fam­i­ly had been laugh­ing and spend­ing time to­geth­er in the vil­la be­fore head­ing to the beach.

An­gel­i­ca was play­ing in the wa­ter and sand be­fore tragedy struck. Jo­gie said she heard the jet ski sec­onds be­fore the tragedy. “I catch my glass­es, put it back on and it fell off. I turned and the wa­ter was frothy. I saw the jet ski slow down, make a turn and I saw Arnold sink­ing with his white rash guard, and there was Saydee. And that was it. I felt so hope­less walk­ing out of that wa­ter. I can’t even touch that wa­ter again. So hope­less.”

She said Saydee had been hav­ing a per­fect day, de­scrib­ing her as “such a hap­py, hap­py child.”

In a heartrend­ing eu­lo­gy, Saydee’s old­er sis­ter An­geli­na said their joy­ous va­ca­tion end­ed in unimag­in­able loss, de­scrib­ing her sis­ter as her “built-in best friend” and “piece of my heart.” She said they did every­thing to­geth­er, in­clud­ing wear­ing match­ing out­fits.

Re­call­ing her fi­nal mem­o­ries with her sis­ter, she said Saydee was the hap­pi­est when her feet touched the wa­ter. While her sis­ter’s life was short, An­geli­na said Saydee brought im­mense joy to every­one she en­coun­tered. “Every sin­gle part of you was a bless­ing,” she said.

Saydee’s class­mates from San Fer­nan­do TML Pri­ma­ry al­so paid trib­ute, per­form­ing a touch­ing acros­tic po­em in her ho­n­our, while her class teacher, Salma Elahie-Ali, presided over the seg­ment.

Prin­ci­pal Wahi­da Mo­hammed-Nar­ine said, “As a prin­ci­pal, you hope to one day stand proud­ly and watch every child walk across a grad­u­a­tion stage. To stand here in­stead… is a heart­break we all share.” She de­scribed An­gel­i­ca as a joy­ful child and a promis­ing schol­ar.

“She was deeply loved—by her class­mates, her teach­ers, and her friends in gym­nas­tics, dra­ma, and the Red Cross. Her pres­ence brought warmth, laugh­ter, and a unique en­er­gy to our school. That love… that joy… will nev­er be for­got­ten.” To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Tourism Sec­re­tary Zor­isha Hack­ett, who al­so at­tend­ed the ser­vice, pledged con­tin­ued sup­port to the fam­i­ly. “We are here not as politi­cians. We are here as new found loved ones of a beau­ti­ful soul, we did not meet, but we now know. No words can bring her back, but we have learned some beau­ti­ful lessons over the last few days. Lessons that a coun­try has al­so learnt, the beau­ty of love and the fragili­ty of life. The fact that com­plete strangers can come to­geth­er for some­thing so beau­ti­ful.”

Hack­ett called for Saydee’s mem­o­ry to be kept alive.

Na­pari­ma MP Dr Narindra Roop­nar­ine al­so ex­tend­ed con­do­lences, as­sur­ing the fam­i­ly of na­tion­al and com­mu­ni­ty sup­port. Saydee’s fam­i­ly lat­er helped car­ry her cof­fin from the home to the dec­o­rat­ed hearse. Over­come with grief, her moth­er leaned against the ve­hi­cle, re­peat­ing, “This is not right.” Rice was thrown as the hearse de­part­ed, with loved ones fol­low­ing be­hind in tears as they pro­ceed­ed to the Shore of Peace for the cre­ma­tion.