Mom's death casts gloom over family

- Contributed

Inez Marston, standing centre, mother of Orchid Seaton-Hall, poses in a photograph taken almost 10 years ago with her grandchildren, Brenton, left, Keron, right, Joan, seated with baby Natasha, and Heather, seated forefront, who are grieving the death of their mother.

Claude Mills, Staff Reporter

THE MONTH of June should have been a great one for family and friends of 48-year-old Orchid Seaton-Hall.

A grand wedding for Mrs. Seaton-Hall's only son, Brenton, had entered its final hectic weeks of preparation. Her eldest daughter, Joan had just bought a car, and there were plans to travel to the United States to see relatives.

However, all those well-laid plans did a tragic about-face in the space of a few seconds on May 25. Now, there is a big hole in the lives of the family whose mother was killed by one of the new Government-owned buses assigned to the Jamaica Urban Transit Company (JUTC).

Mrs. Hall is survived by her children Joan Green, 32, Heather Young, 29, Brenton Hall, 24, Keron Hall, 22, and Natasha Hall, 10.

"Now we have no parents," lamented her only son Brenton. His father, Glen Lloyd Hall, had died of a stroke in 1996.

Mrs. Seaton-Hall, according to her children, had gone to the wharf to clear a barrel. She was on her way home when she was hit while crossing the road. The news rocked the family.

"I got a call at 2:30 p.m. that I should call by the bar and that's when I got the news of what had happened," Brenton said. "I went up to the KPH (Kingston Public Hospital) and I saw my mother...she had a head and an arm injury...It seemed the flat section of the bus had hit her head, it kinda caved in."

The youngest child Natasha, who attends Wolmer's Prepara-tory School, seems to be handling the tragedy well.

"Natasha doesn't seem to be taking it very hard as far as I can see," her brother said. "She goes to church but she's not started any counselling yet...But it's kinda rough, losing two parents in five years. The teacher says she still plays with the other children."

Although her family is paralysed by grief, Natasha carries the flame of her mother's memory. She is fiercely determined to continue her education.

"Mommy would not have wanted me to stop from school," Natasha explained last week. "I will miss her though. She always took good care of me. She combed my hair, she put me on the bus to go to school in the morning...She was my friend."

Still, the family is somewhat angered by the silence of the JUTC in the wake of their mother's death.

"A lady from JUTC came to express her condolence, but she never left a number or anything," Heather, a teacher, said last week. "We have got no official word from them yet."

But she is far more emotional about missing an opportunity to tell her mother how much she loved her.

"I am angry that I didn't get a chance to show her how much we appreciated her," Heather added. "We were just getting ourselves together financially, we spent all our money going to teacher's college. My sister has a car, she never got the chance to drive (mother) in it, and she is going to miss Brenton's wedding now."

In the meantime, Jacqueline Williams, the driver of the bus which plies the Cross Roads to Spanish Town route, has been on "compassionate leave" since the incident on Weymouth Drive, off Washington Boulevard, in St. Andrew, last month. She too has been hit hard emotionally. Her career is also in doubt.

"She started two months ago, but she is now traumatised by the incident," said Wayne Moore, a traffic superintendent at the Spanish Town bus depot.

Mr. Moore explained that Mrs. Seaton-Hall, according to eyewitness accounts gathered by the JUTC, "apparently stepped into the road" as the bus approached. The driver, he added, "waited for her to cross." She didn't. Then as the bus moved forward, Mrs. Seaton-Hall "stepped out in the road and the bus tapped her in the head, and she died," he said.

The JUTC has been dogged by a series of bad public relations incidents, including a $200 million fire and several stone-throwing incidents, in recent times. According to Mr. Moore, Carmen Allen, the manager of the JUTC's human resources department, had visited the family since the incident.

But that will not bring back Mrs. Seaton-Hall, whose family called her a "determined woman" and a firm believer in a sound education. Neighbours remember her as a charitable woman who organised an annual treat for the children in the Maverly area of St. Andrew, using her own money generated by a bar she owned in the community.

"Almost every morning, I would stop at Mommy's for breakfast, I loved her cooking," said the eldest child Joan, who teaches at the nearby Maverly Junior High School.

Heather's grandmother, 77-year-old Inez Marston, is also deeply hurt by the loss of the one she called her "favourite daughter", Orchid.

"Everywhere I look, I see her face," Ms. Marston said. "She is gone but she is still here with me. I miss our talks, I miss her presence...She was my right hand and my strength. I don't know what I'm going to do...Will you adopt me?" she joked, attempting to lift the cloud of depression at the house.

But the cloud hovers still.

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