50 years of family history goes up in smoke

What was meant to be a proud family celebration has become one of the darkest moments in the Hawes family’s history.

While Shannondore Hawes was in the US celebrating her daughter’s high school graduation, an early morning fire last Friday tore through the family compound on Burke Road, Spanish Town, St Catherine, destroying 11 homes, wiping out decades of memories and leaving multiple generations of relatives with nothing but the clothes they escaped in. For Hawes, who has lived on the property since birth, the loss is almost impossible to comprehend.

“I’m blessed and highly favoured because I’m not mourning any lives,” the 48-year-old told THE STAR. “But I’m not coming back home to nothing.” The trip overseas was just to support her daughter, not a working visit.

“I’m coming down with my two long hands,” she said.

The property represented nearly half a century of family history.

“I am 48 years old. My older sister and brother are going to be 50 this year and my parents were living there before that,” she said. “I’ve been living there from birth and the ones before me, the older ones, it’s the same for them.”

Beyond the sentimental value, Hawes said she had already begun preparing for the new school year before leaving the island. She had purchased textbooks and her eldest daughter had recently sent home a brand-new school bag for her youngest sibling.

“Even that… everything… all of them things just burn up in the fire. It’s not like I never started already. I started,” she lamented. The devastating news reached her while she slept.

“I heard my son say, ‘Mommy, everything burn up’, but mi continue [sleep] because mi say this is a dream,” she said. Moments later, another son confirmed her worst fears.

“I realised it was my third son saying, ‘Mummy, everything gone’,” she recalled.

Despite her own heartbreak, Hawes said she immediately tried to comfort him.

“I had to say, ‘Listen to me now. Everything burn up but you’re still alive. God nah carry we this far fi leave we. If Him even break we, Him ago make we back’,” she said.

Hawes said remaining strong for her children became her only option.

“I have a five-year-old son who is depending on me and I have a 13-year-old daughter who is also depending on me. I can’t afford to break. I have to be strong,” she said. “When I come home, I just have to plan to pick up. There is no piece to pick up, so I have to start from scratch. It is going to be very hard, but I just have to do it.”

Hawes said she has to put pride aside, and whatever kind persons can purchase for her, she will gladly accept.

“I do a little work. I don’t work every day, but I do work. It’s back to school [time]. If a one tarpaulin me affi go live under, I’m willing, but mi nah give up. Give up is not an option,” she said.

While Hawes was trying to process the tragedy from overseas, her sister Sherika Hawes was desperately trying to save her family and whatever belongings she could before the flames consumed everything.

“We have nothing. All I had on my back was a dress,” Sherika said. She recalled being jolted awake by frantic cries outside.

“I heard voices. I don’t know whose voices, but I heard voices saying, ‘Fire! Fire!’ When I flew up out of the bed and ran out barefooted, I saw the fire in my car and there was a cord hanging down at the front. There was also fire on that cord,” she said.

Believing there was still time, she rushed back into the dark house.

“I went back inside for my phone. I was in a panic. I tried to turn on the light so I could see because inside was dark,” she said. Sherika and her 13-year-old son hurried to salvage whatever they could while also trying to get her 17-year-old daughter to safety. Sherika explained that escaping was especially frightening because her daughter has cataracts in both eyes, and lives with diabetes, dwarfism and an intellectual disability.