The pain Verron Bollers is going through right now is one that is immeasurable. The wounds of losing his child are still fresh and what makes it especially harder is that he will be spending Father’s Day without his son.
Verron Bollers
Father’s Day can be the most painful day of the year for a father who’s lost his son just days before in a gruesome accident. Society still has it that men are supposed to be “strong” and never show emotions. However, men do grieve, and they grieve very deeply.
Following the death of his 18-year-old son in an accident at Delph Street, Campbellville, a few days ago, Bollers is now completely devastated, and cannot hold back his tears. For him, his son was his everything.
Just in the prime of his youth, Elijah Bollers’ life was snatched from him as he was making his way home from work. Elijah was riding his motorcycle, allegedly at a fast rate when he collided with motor car HC 1527 that was driven by a 34-year-old man who reportedly failed to adhere to a stop sign. The impact of the collision flung the young Bollers several feet away.
Verron said he learnt of his son’s passing just after he returned home from work.
“Somebody came to the house and tell me that my son lying on the road unconscious and that he was struck down. By the time I reach the scene, he was already taken to the hospital so I went there and they told me that my son came in bleeding and they were unable to save him”.
The young man’s father conveyed that he is “lost for words” and feels as though he has failed as a parent since saving his son was too great of a task for him.
“I am broken up, I am distraught, its paining, this destroyed my entire life. My son was my last child, this was the one that I loved the most, this was the one that I spoiled. Right now, I don’t know what to do,” the grieving man said.
He added: “I am dying, I am dying for my little son. I am dying since my son died. I suffer from low blood pressure and I weed people yard for a living. I can’t even go to work because I wouldn’t be able to focus. I can’t handle it”.
The older Bollers explained that he has been a single parent to 12 children for the past 14 years, and he is not just struggling with the reality of his son’s death, but also with the thought of how he would be able to foot the expenses for the funeral.
“That child was my promise, their mother left me when he was five years old. I did it alone for 14 years without a mother. I did everything to take care of my children. I did odd jobs. I cleaned, from yards to fetching sand, to cleaning drains, and even to cleaning septic tanks to take care of my children. Right now, I am sitting here I don’t even have money to bury my child and its hurts”, the distraught father said.
The man added that he was unable to get a proper job since 2005 after he lost all of his documents in the flood. He said after the flood he went to the Guyana Post Office (GPO) and the National Insurance Scheme (NIS) to get his documents back and was told that they only have records that he had died and there is nothing they can do for him.
Since then, Verron said, his “misery” started.
“This is my frustrated situation. I don’t even want to say that this is the story of my life. I have had a lot of injustice. Now that my son get big and can help his family and do something for himself they took him away from me”, he said, trying to hold back his tears.
Bollers described his son as a remarkable and loving child who was in the process of achieving great things.
“He wasn’t studying, but he was in the process of building a house, and he was just 18. I can’t stand it, I am 63 years old. I am only trying to stand up because I am a man and I have nine other people in my house”.
The single father expressed that Father’s Day will never be the same since he lost his son. He is calling on the police to bring the person responsible for this son’s death to justice since he believes that the young man who was full of life did not deserve to die.
