A banner on her fence warns people to stay away from drugs and 60-year-old Ingrid Subryan is determined to always speak against the scourge of substance abuse, having witnessed the havoc it wreaked in the lives of her two eldest children.
As she witnessed the physical, mental, emotional, and psychological pain her sons endured, Subryan, as any mother would, struggled with them. She did her best, but it was just not enough to save them from the clutches of drug abuse.
Their pain, and to an extent hers, ended recently when the younger of the two was struck down and killed by a garbage truck, and two months later his older brother was found dead in his prison cell. For Subryan, the deaths of Roger and Randy Samuel mean they no longer suffer.
Sitting in her kitchen, a swollen leg propped up and covered with a rag, Subryan spoke freely about her struggles, her successes and her faith. She laughed at times as she reminisced but at other times she cried, pain evident on her face.
A stone’s throw away from where she sat, four pairs of footwear were drying in the sun, visible from her position in the kitchen.
“We guh keep the slippers, but I will give the shoes to somebody. You know, somebody who working or something, because dem in good condition,” she said of the footwear that once belonged to Roger. A small garden opposite her home, planted by Roger, provides another memory.
Roger, who was 44, was recently discovered dead in a call in the Lusignan Prison, where he was on remand over the alleged theft of a car. A post-mortem examination done on his body revealed that he died of gastrointestinal haemorrhaging caused by bleeding and gastric ulcers. His mother believes the beatings he received at the hands of persons from whom he had stolen and even allegedly by lawmen when he was arrested at one time, also contributed to his death.
Her son had informed her that in December he had gone to the Brickdam Police Station to report a robbery and he was instead arrested. Because he was high on drugs at the time he behaved unruly and he alleged he was beaten by the police. This newspaper was unable to get a response from the police to this allegation.
Two months earlier, Randy, 42, who like Roger lived with his mother at her La Parfaite Harmonie home, also died.
An animated storyteller, the grieving woman made it clear that she spoke “raw about it” and did not try to be “diplomatic” because the lives and struggles of her sons were real and too many families were being destroyed by substance abuse. Both of her sons spent many of their years in jail over a period of time and neither ever held down a steady job. Randy used to assist her with selling pastries and was known as ‘the pastry man’ in the community. Roger did small jobs and was often paid in cocaine which just fed his addiction.
“Sometimes it is hard to save your children when you live in some communities. I was out working, and I think they by [were with] good people but not knowing that they getting drugs; weed and then cocaine,” the mother said about the two eldest of her seven children.
‘Bittersweet’
“I am very sorry fuh me sons but I big and I have understanding. I know they fall in the path of drugs and it destroy them. And individuals in the neighbourhood, people that know them, people that sell the drugs to them… everybody beat them when they [were] in that state…,” she lamented.
“… Is like it bittersweet. I sorry but I glad because nobody ain’t guh thief nothing and then say is me sons and police coming and harass me. It is 29 years and is God keep me. It was not easy. And I feel proud to know that I fight with me children to they death and I see whey they deh. Now when I lie down to sleep, I ain’t gaffo deh studying ‘Oh God, Roger whey you deh?’ and thinking somebody must be beat he and kill he…”
Having lost them both in a matter of two months, she emphasized that she is grieving, pointing out that she “mek them outta meh belly and I fight in life to give them wha God give me to enjoy”.
Switching to how hard she worked over the years Subryan, who baked for a living and still does to an extent today, said even though she was married twice, she had to work and build the house she now calls home.
“No man ain’t give me this. I work hard as a baker and I build this house…,” she said, pointing to the interior of her one flat concrete home.
Roger and Randy were the only two of her seven children who lived in Guyana. Four live in England and one lives in the US. As she spoke, she called on an adult male who was in the home and later explained that she took him in when he was nine years old even though she was struggling, and since the death of Roger he had moved to assist her.
“You see meh blessings come back to me,” she said, as she asked him to serve me and a colleague cups of ginger beer with ice.
She shared that she was pregnant eight times, but her eldest son died at seven months and she has since referred to Roger as her eldest child.
They lived in Lodge, Georgetown and Subryan said it was in a yard Roger frequented that he got introduced to marijuana by a family friend.
“They start give he drugs. You know people wicked, as a lil boy they start give he drugs… that is what people does do to you children, give them drugs because remember I deh on de field working…,” she chronicled.
Roger started to steal as a child and as he grew older it got worse and “he was in and out of jail, in and out of jail [for] 29 years”. Prior to his death, he had been out for two and a half years and his mother said that was the longest time he spent out of prison during the period of his addiction.
Talking about the alleged car theft that got him remanded to prison, Subryan said he had met someone he knew who offered him a ride. During the journey, the individual stopped to make a purchase and left the key in the car’s ignition. Roger drove away the vehicle.
“How he stay, he just drive away and tek a nice drive, how he de high from de smoking. He drive all about and then park it by some drugs block. But he ain’t go in a place and thief like how deh saying he is a car thief, that is lie…” Subryan said.
She said the owner of the car visited her home and informed her that it was his brother-in-law who was driving the car at the time and had picked up her son.
Subryan said she is now stricken with arthritis in her knees and back and could no longer “run around to help me sons. Is two canes I does walk with”. She recalled that in their younger days veteran journalist Adam Harris helped her on many occasions as she fought a valiant battle to snatch her sons back from the jaws of substance abuse.
Once, she had paid for Roger to be rehabilitated but before the treatment ended at the Salvation Army, “he come out back and never go back. He come out, thief, guh back in jail, thief guh back in jail…,” she said.
Asked about the banner on her fence, Subryan said she brought it back from the US a few years ago as it is her wish to educate persons even though some of the young would pass and laugh.
Professional baker
Subryan describes herself as a professional baker, though she never attended a formal institution to be taught. She believes she learnt from the best as both of her parents were very good in the kitchen. “My father was a baker and me mother did like cook,” she said, adding that baking and cooking “went in me blood”.
She once owned Subryan’s Bakery in the city and supplied pastries to many shops. Her many baking pans laid out in the kitchen tell the story but today they are not used as frequently as she operates on a small scale. Since the death of her sons, Subryan said, she is taking a rest.
“Me son that the Puran truck knock down [Randy] he use to trouble with drugs, but he was better than Roger. He used to repair he self and then get good and I use to bake, and he use to ride around this whole scheme place and sell. He was popular and known as ‘Pastry Man…,’” she said.
“When he get hit down, he deh getting another relapse. So God is good because duh relapse woulda freak he out because is two years he deh on de road and doing petty thing and he ain’t going in jail…”
She referred to some members of the judiciary as a “pack of clowns” as to her it seemed that they did not make proper assessments of defendants before rendering their decisions. She believes medical attention should have been ordered for Roger even as he was remanded to prison because of his state.
Though married twice, Subryan still describes herself as a single parent as her former husbands did not assist in the upbringing of their children. Roger and Ryan’s father was also addicted to drugs and while he died in hospital, he was homeless prior to his hospitalization.
“He sell the house that we deh build jointly with we in it. We was thrown out. He smoke and sell the house, even though we did own it jointly. He do a jiggery-pokery and sell the house,” she shared.
They were separated at the time.
“I move on and look at me children, puppy turn dog. Me second husband he go away, too. I catch he with me neighbour and I talk, and he come and lash me and break me hand. I jail he because he eyes pass me. You can’t lash me fuh a married woman, if was a single woman I mighta give you a chance…,” she said.
Her husband was British born and after his incarceration he returned to England. “I band me belly and I mind them [her children]”.
He did not send for his children. According to Subryan, it was her “brain send them away”. She shared that the first three children were born out of wedlock, and the last after they were married. Years after her husband returned to England, Subryan said, an idea came to her to contact the British High Commission to ascertain whether her youngest child, who was born in wedlock, was entitled to a British passport because of her father.
She remembers the name of the officer, Sandra Tularam, who spoke to her and advised her on the steps to take.
On the day she uplifted her youngest child’s British passport, she thought of enquiring about the other three who shared the same father. She had not left the High Commission’s compound, she said, when “all wah a hear in me ears is turn back Ingrid and ask about the three children who born of the same father.
“Meh foot didn’t go down to go out and I mek suh zwing [she made a motion with her hands as she spoke] and go back to Sandra…,” she said, adding that she was advised about a document their father needed to sign. He signed the required document, and the rest is history.
“Me brain and God, that is how I get four British passports fuh them,” she said.
Her third daughter later married a US citizen and now lives there and Subryan believes this happened through her benevolence. This daughter, Rhonda, Subryan said, was her “backbone”.
‘Good life’
Even though she had many struggles and in spite of her sons’ addictionsn Subryan said she had a good life.
“Even though all kinda rollercoaster did going on I still had a good life because I am a highly faithful believer in Christ… So they [her sons] never drag me in de ground. I never beg. I never deh bad, I never hungry. I always get something I could give somebody and help somebody…,” she said.
Now, she said, she is content, adding that if she gets $60,000 a month from her children to pay her light bill and keep her internet she is happy.
She said she needs the internet for her phone which she described as her husband, “where I could go and get a lil laugh and mek lil comments. I good. I don’t have to fight up to do a strenuous job…”
She recalled that she had built one room each for her sons and ensured that they had their privacy.
“I had me lil project and I do what I had to do. And I know they did feel good because they had they own privacy…,” she said, shaking her head sadly as tears streamed down her face.
“Me children never bring me down. They steal and suh, but they never put me in de gutter. This same big one, when he do anything he use to go and say guilty because he know is rest. And I use to send the lil small piece in jail so they could buy they lil drink and so…
“I put my all into them. They never short of food,” she said, even as she pointed to bottles of tonic that she had purchased for her sons.
“They went alright. They sister use to send clothes fuh them and so. But is just de drugs mash them up… All two of them gone and rest and God give me peace too because I use to go through the ups and downs. But God used to give me the strength to go through it.”
She pointed out that film stars and other persons with money also lost their lives to drugs. “Me two sons flat. Put them to Michael Jackson and others who lose them life to drugs, they had all de money in de world and drugs carry them away.”
For Ingrid Subryan there was nothing else she could have done. And she is thankful that she can now sleep peacefully at night.
