Family in pain

Earlier Jonathan Forte was telling his grandmother he was going home to prepare a meal. A few hours later she had to hear the painful news that he was found hanging in his apartment.

The news was relayed to her by Jonathan’s brother who told her via telephone that he had to “cut the sheet” to get his older brother down from where he was hanging at his Ashdeane Village, Black Rock, St Michael apartment on Wednesday night.

Gentelia Nurse said the tears have been flowing and her body “trembling” ever since the fateful call.

The grieving 75-year-old during an interview at her residence, a stone’s throw away from Forte’s apartment, told Barbados TODAY that her family is now searching for answers about why the father of three, ages 8, 7 and 2, would have taken his own life.

Nurse said while she was unable to visit the scene, Forte’s mother and other relatives combed his apartment to see if he left a note, but found nothing.

“He born in the hospital. His mother bring him home and I had him from then.  Now, I don’t know what I will do. I am sickly. When I sick he would do everything for me. He would wash and do everything. I don’t know what Jonathan gone and do. He know that I sick and I depending on him,” the grandmother cried out.

Noting that she last saw the assistant pool attendant just a few hours before his body was discovered after 11 p.m. He told her then that he was headed home to cook corn beef, the elderly woman recalled.

Nurse, who is grappling with some health challenges, is also the guardian of Forte’s seven-year-old Ashonte Forte, who has been living with her from the time she was a baby.

“When he left here last night he tell me ‘gran gran I will see you tomorrow’. When he left here last night he told her [his daughter] ‘I will see you tomorrow when I come from work’. I didn’t looking for nothing so.

“His daughter tell me ‘gran gran I pray to God that he will come back alive, and we will see him come back home’. And she said, ‘my daddy can’t dead because my daddy know that he is the only body that I got’,” she said.

Rubbing Nurse’s shoulder and offering some comfort, was family friend Cheryl Clarke, who said she considered herself to be Forte’s second mother.

She explained that Forte and her children had been friends from primary school and maintained a close relationship since those early days. She said the deceased, who attended Alma Parris, was not perfect, but he demonstrated what it means to be a true friend, standing at her children’s side through good and bad times.

“It is hurting my son’s heart to see that he lost his best friend. My two children are so depressed right now. I helped raise Jonathan. This is so hard for us right now,”  Clarke said.

Residents of Ashdeane Village were also in a state of shock when a Barbados TODAY team visited the area. Several of them admitted that they were struggling to understand what transpired between seeing Forte on Wednesday evening, to watching his body being taken away from his residence in a body bag hours after.

One neighbour who requested anonymity recalled hearing loud screams coming from Forte’s apartment and concluded that he and his girlfriend were probably having another relationship issue.

“Then I find out he hang himself. I was so surprised because I see him washing his car yesterday. I was so surprised and I was saying that I ain’t see his girlfriend since when, it was only him alone.

“He was a hard-working young man. He used to come in and wash the car and things like that. He just didn’t use to do a lot of talking. He just used to go and come and do his thing. This is really hard for his family. He is a young man,” the neighbour said.

anestahenry@barbadostoday.bb