Seventy-four-year-old Verona Graham had a premonition about the death of her daughter, Jennifer, the night before she was killed.
Graham had a disturbing vision on the night of December 15, 2016 which had her earnestly awaiting her daughter’s regular early-morning phone call the following morning. She wanted to tell her to stay away from her matrimonial home in Dias, Hanover.
That morning, the phone call never came, because Jennifer Garrison, Graham’s daughter, was stabbed to death in an apparent dispute with her husband. He was later arrested and charged with murder.
Graham’s last conversation with her daughter, whom she describes as her bedrock, was via telephone the day before her death. Following a visit to the hospital in Lucea for her regular medical check-up, her daughter had called from her workplace to check on her.
“When mi come up (home), me just feel a heavy doubt feeling and mi try fi walk it out to see if I can get rid of that feeling … but don’t care what me do, me can’t get rid of that feeling,” said Graham. “Inna di night, mi get di dream fi tell Jennifer say, ‘Don’t go over there’ – because Junior gwine kill her.”
“Mi get up di morning … . She used to call me 7 o’clock every morning … I was waiting on her to call me di morning to tell her ‘don’t go over there?” said Graham, as she reminisced at her residence in the hills of Clifton district. “Me can’t get no call and mi want fi deliver the message … she would call me two times every day, in the morning and in the evening.”
Later that morning, a community member came to her house and broke the news of her daughter’s death in a roundabout way.
“Him say, ‘Yuh hear anything?’ (and) mi say, ‘No,'” said Graham. “Him say, ‘Mi can’t keep it, Miss Venie – dem say mi noh fi come roun here come tell you anything, but noh worry yuhself; don’t fret too much.’ Den him say, ‘Junior kill yu gyal.'”
… ‘Stand by me, Daddy Jesus!’
“Mi say, God, a di dream dis mi get fi har and mi turn to di lad and say; ‘mi just get a dream and mi did want deliver di message,” said Graham. “Mi put mi hands on mi head and say, ‘Oh God, have mercy’, Jesus, give me the strength. Stand by me, Daddy Jesus, stand by me – same way me going on.”
Graham was persuaded not to view her daughter’s body because of its condition. Because is hypertensive, her family members felt it could trigger a rise in blood pressure.
Even as she continues to grieve for the child she bore half a century ago, Graham says she had to reassure her other children that, even as they mourn, they should also rest assured that the Almighty will carry them through this period of grief.
“Mi tell one of my daughters, that was crying, fe ask God fi give her faith and strength,” said Graham. “We are feeling it; we gwine bear it. God naw give we more than what we can bear.”
“All the time, me consider over it. I am trying to keep the faith. Up to last week me just crying … I leave it in the hands of the Lord,” Graham said.
