(Trinidad Express) Thank you, Daryl.
Those were the words mother of two, Alesha Garcia, would say to her husband if she could see him one last time.
Daryl Garcia, 43, drowned at a beach in Guayaguayare while saving his eight-year-old son last week Thursday.
The drowning was witnessed by the couple’s two children.
Garcia, also 43, said her children were traumatised by the incident. But she was grateful that they were alive.
In a telephone interview with the Express, Garcia thanked her husband for the ultimate sacrifice.
“Thank you, Daryl. Because of him I have my two children here with me today. I could have been burying all three of them. Daryl was not a good dad. He was a great, great dad. There are no words to describe how good he was. I want him to know that I know he sacrificed his life for our son. He wanted his son to live, to carry on his name. Thank you for that,” she said.
Garcia, a security guard, said her husband had dropped her to work at the Arima Health Centre at around 5.30am that day.
He was on a week leave from work, she said.
Garcia said her husband checked on his mother in Arima and then returned home to their children.
The children did not attend school that day.
Garcia said tried calling the land line to check on the children but there was no answer. She then called her daughter’s cellphone and was told they were going for a drive with their dad.
“My daughter said her dad asked if they wanted to go to the beach and they said yes. She said they were going to Manzanilla but the water was dirty and so they decided to go Mayaro. I told her be safe and that I loved them. That was the last time I spoke to them until she called again in tears,” she said.
The phone call came at around 2pm, she said.
The teen girl called to say her father had gone under the water.
“My daughter said it was time to leave and she went to start the car engine to heat up. When she turned around and was walking back she saw her father throwing her little brother as far as he can. She knew something was wrong and she shouted at her brother to get out of the water. Then they stood and watched their father go under the water,” she said.
The 15-year-old daughter then bundled her trembling brother into the back seat and drove the car a short distance away to get help.
“She went to a village and I want to say thank you to those people who called the police and stayed with them until I got there later that evening,” she said.
Garcia said her husband’s body resurfaced at around 7am the following day.
An autopsy confirmed that the father of two died from drowning.
His funeral is expected to take place on Wednesday.
The couple who had been together for several years married in August 2017.
Garcia said, “My husband was a great man and he will be missed. Now I have to take care of my children and bring them up the way he wanted. We will all miss him very much.”