She tried to hide the pain with her usual joviality and playfulness. But the wound in Yvonne Reynolds' heart was too deep to conceal.

Looking closely enough, it is clear it was as deep as the hole the gravediggers were digging for the burial of another of her sons last week.

Or possibly even deeper.

Maybe as deep as the 11-foot tank in which her two youngest sons drowned during what should have been a simple afternoon of frolic last year.

The three boys all died just eight months apart. That's why it hurts so much.

It hurts more because, to her, they were good sons and three of the only four children she had.

"I don't know how to describe it, but those boys were going to be some of the best young men you could ever find," Reynolds said, as she sat by the tank in which they drowned back in September of last year.

Jayson Parkinson, the youngest of the four at 14 years old, would have probably become a chef, she believes.

"He was a kitchen man and Christopher was a game man," she said.

Athletic, the six-foot-something Christopher would have probably become a well-known cricketer. He was only 16 years old.

However, fate would not have it that way.

Frustrated by the unemployment she continually faced while in Jamaica, Reynolds left for the Cayman Islands early last year to seek out a better living for both herself and her boys.

She never expected the phone call she would get only a few months later.

"I was at church when they call me to tell me that they find them. I was even late for church that morning," she remembered.

"And after Sunday school I asked the pastor to pray for me that they would come home and they prayed."

The call

The call was full of all the things every mother dreads to hear about her children.

"I asked if they find them and the person say 'Yes'. Me say, 'Them chop dem up?', the person say 'No'. Me say, 'Dem lock dem up?', the person say 'No'. So me say, "What happen?', the person naa answer. So me say, 'A dead dem dead?', the person say 'Yes'."

Reynolds is not sure what happened after that. She only remembers that she woke up in hospital after blacking out.

She came back to Jamaica and buried her children but returned to the Cayman Islands shortly after because remaining in Jamaica was just too hard to bear.

However, she never stopped thinking about her two boys. She returned to Jamaica for Jayson's birthday, but it was about a month after Christopher's birthday that she received more bad news.

"Me cry that Friday whole day so till me eye them swell, me jus could not contain myself," she said, explaining that she had been looking at a photograph of her three sons - Christopher, Jayson and another son Renardo - the night before.

"I kept crying until I hear that Renardo died, because when I went to bed the Thursday night ... I kissed (the photograph of) Christopher and Jayson and I said, "Mommy love onoo you know", and touch Renardo in the face and say, "Mommy soon come look for you, man". I went to bed crying. And then them wake me up 3:30 in the morning fi tell me say 'Renny' burn up!" she told The Gleaner.

The 19-year-old Renardo, who had Down's syndrome, was staying at his father's house in Coffee Grove when the incident occurred on May 29.

Witnesses say he was trying to save some items in the burning house.

Reynolds could not cry at first, when she heard the news, because she was in such disbelief. It was not until she touched Jamaican soil that grief struck her yet again.

Judgement

"When the plane reach Kingston and do that first touch down there, me start bus' a cry cause me did know me did a go face one more judgement. And me say, 'God, why every time me come down me haffi come down in so much tears?"

She added: "Sometimes when you listen to others and they say this happen to them and that happen to them, it kind of strengthens me sometimes, but sometimes I still ask, 'Why this have to happen to me? Is one [child] me have left and then the one me have left can't stay one place."

Reynolds said her only remaining son was so close to his three brothers that he is now torn apart.

As she spoke, 20-year-old Sydney Jr appeared. He walked slowly to the tank with Christopher's dog, Lively, running behind him. They both stopped and stared into the deep, dark earthen tank, which has remained undrained since the incident last September. He said nothing.

"At one point, me ago break down, but not yet, right now, me a live fi Junior and him a live fi me. Him a fi mi tower. A jus the two a we lef," she said.

Grief-stricken, Sydney Parkinson Sr held his head down and wept for his only remaining son to come see him. They embraced and cried together.

gareth.manning@gleanerjm.com