Hours before an employee of the Attorney General’s Office was pronounced dead early this morning from an apparent medication overdose, he dropped a fateful hint to his mother Maxine Baker in a phone call from his workplace yesterday.
Julian Watson, 36, of Ivy Main Road, St Michael was rushed to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) sometime after 9 o’clock last night, but was declared dead at the hospital’s Accident and Emergency Department at around 6.30 a.m. today.
“‘I can’t manage this one, I goin’ got to do this,’” Baker recalled her son whispering while on the phone with her.
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Mother Maxine Baker (right) is consoled by sister Jacqueline Baker this afternoon. Below, the late Julian Watson.[/caption]
“He said under his breath yesterday . . . he was talking to me on the phone . . . he like he moved the phone a bit and said under his breath . . . ‘I can’t manage this one, I goin’ got to do this . . .’ but I never asked him what he meant. I just pretended I didn’t hear that part. But I wasn’t looking for nothing like this,” the retired probation officer told Barbados TODAY this afternoon during an interview in a hushed home while her teary-eyed sister Jacqueline sat nearby.
Baker said the death of her only child, who worked in the accounts department in the Attorney General’s Office for ten years, has still not had an impact on her yet.
“Even though my son is gone, it has not hit me full yet, because I have been traumatized so much over the years . . . in the home, in the work . . . I have been traumatized . . . like part of my soul is now gone. You got to do soul retrieval now. I have to do soul retrieval, because that is what I need to do now because I cannot feel his death yet,” she said.
The mother, who said she did not believe her son took his life on his own, told Barbados TODAY she had been hearing rumours he belonged to an organization and was asked to do a task. She did not elaborate.
She said she was not at their Ivy Road home when he was rushed to hospital and expressed anger at not being informed much earlier by the mother of his two children.
“I found out about 9.30 last night, when the girl, who supposed to be his girlfriend called me. So by the time I got to the hospital, he had already had a tube down his throat, which meant that he was there for some time before . . . and they told me after that had happened. I was told he may have taken an overdose,” said Baker in trembling voice.
Baker described her son as a man of few words
“We were in Trinidad the last weekend in September. I took him because I know he was having some problems, so I thought that a man of God would be able to help him. The man did talk to him, yes, and his spirits were lifted
. . . but I don’t know what happened [since then] because when he is away from me we don’t talk that much . . . . We are not really talkers either. So, when I don’t hear him for a day or two, it’s no problem because I know he is into something. But the man of God was telling he was battling some evil spirits,” the mourning mother said.
Over at the Attorney General’s Chambers, the atmosphere was sombre when a Barbados TODAY team visited.
Deputy Permanent Secretary Charles Piggott said workers were in shock at the death of a “friendly and effervescent chap.
“I know that his passing has come as shock to members of staff here at the Office of the Attorney General. I saw him on several occasions while in our various rounds this week and there was no evidence that he was under any stress or any sign that he was burdened in any way,” Piggott said.
The deputy permanent secretary also described Watson as a good worker who would be missed.
He also revealed that the administration and staff met this morning with counselling agency Network Services.
The late accounts department worker was also described by staff as a lively and jovial person.
Police are carrying out investigations into the circumstances surrounding the apparent suicide.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
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