Claude and Steve Taylor visit the graveside of their elder brother, Winston, and the other seven residents killed in the horrific December 19 accident. The brothers say this is the first time they have visited the burial site since the funeral because the pain has been too hard to bear.- photos by Ian Allen/freelance Photographer

EVEN IF they wanted to forget, they have not. Eight months after the tragic accident, which left 14 people dead, eight from their community, the residents of Mill Bank in east Portland are still feeling the effects of the loss.

The deafeningly quiet community, set in the Rio Grande Valley, was a peaceful picture of rustic charm when The Sunday Gleaner visited recently.

Men and women were seen coming from their fields with the day's harvest of dasheen, while others laboured over mounds of the popular staple in preparation for transport to the local markets and for export.

But hidden beneath the adrenaline brought on by the day's toil was a deep sense of loss and grief.

The residents admit that they still struggle to cope with the loss of family members and friends.

Leon Palmer lost four members of his family in the crash. His common-law wife, Lasandra Dean; his 10-year-old son, Ronaldo Palmer; his brother, Leroy Deans, and his sister-in-law, Beverley Johnson.

truck overturned

The residents fell to their death when the market truck in which they were travelling overturned in the Rio Grande Valley.

They were on their way to the Coronation Market in Kingston.

"It affect me a lot 'cause it leave mi lonely," he told The Sunday Gleaner. "More time it come cross mi mind and weaken mi spirit, cause it leave a feelings pon yuh.

"More time you will go out and try to spend some time on the road, but when you going back home and you passing the graves, it just throw yuh off a little. Plus when you remember seh yuh nah go home go see them, it mess yuh up, man," he added.

Palmer, who has been rendered a single parent by the crash, admitted that he tries to remain positive and focused for his two remaining children - a 14-year-old daughter and a two-year-old stepson. But he said it hasn't been easy: "Some days better than some."

The pain and trauma of December 19 is also still quite potent for Claude and Steve Taylor, younger brothers of Winston Taylor, who at 50 was one of the oldest persons to die in the accident.

"Even now, sometimes mi still can't believe seh him gone," Steve told The Sunday Gleaner. "Last week mi stand up in the backyard and hear him a call out mi name and mi answer and seh 'Yes!' and then mi remember seh him dead," he added.

Though the brothers live only a few yards from the spot where eight of the 14 were buried last January, they say they have not ventured to the graveside.

"Mi can't deal with it 'cause mi nuh like think bout it," Claude said.

The brothers say Winston was the real farmer in the family and his death has left a void. Since his death, they have not brought themselves to go back on the farm, except for once. Instead, they have decided to concentrate on their job as craftsmen.

"It rough without him 'cause him used to look out fi we whole heap," the brothers both agreed.

"Even when him dead, him did have about $65,000 on him fi go buy food and other things for the family and other people in the area. So we nuh just lose we brother, we lose some a we savings in the crash," Steve said.

But it's not just the families who mourn for their loved ones, residents say the financial stability of the entire community has been affected.

Jacqueline Gray, a farmer in the district, told The Sunday Gleaner that since the ill-fated Friday night, preparations for market day, parti-cularly 'Friday market', has not been the same.

"Friday market mash up because all the Friday higglers dead in the crash," lamented Gray.

"From that Friday night to now, since we have no more Friday higglers, you find the whole thing change. It's like we don't have no Friday again," she said.

higglers played a vital role

Gray said the higglers played a vital role in the community not just as main breadwinners for their own families, but almost as a form of connection, bridging the gap between Mill Bank and the rest of Jamaica.

"When them go out to the markets every week, people would ask them to bring back things that we don't have up here. "So like tomato, onion, Irish and scallion. We don't produce those things up here, so they would bring it back for us," another member of the farming community informed.

"The farmers hardly have buyers fi dem produce from them gone 'cause a dem woulda come in and buy and go to market and sell."

He added: "The community nuh recover, we can't recover. We miss them terrible, man. You never know how them important till them gone."

athaliah.reynolds@gleanerjm.com

Dasheen farmer Balford Moore concentrates while he skilfully prepares the popular tuber for transport to local markets and for export.