There is still no word from the nursery following the death of three-month-old Neymar Renaldo Andre Jules who was discovered unresponsive in a crib on Monday.
Three days after the shocking turn of events, relatives of the infant are demanding answers from the St James day care facility about what went so tragically wrong on only his third day at the facility.
Relatives say the development has plunged them into one of the saddest periods of their lives.
At a Boscobelle, St Peter home shared by Neymar’s mother, Mishika Jules and his father Andre Skeete, the grieving parents said they were too distraught to sit down for an interview with Barbados TODAY.
However, they both confirmed they were yet to hear a word from the owners of the day-care, which their son had only attended for three days before he died.
The close-knit and private family declined to release photos of Neymar and asked that their faces not be shown, but said they were in desperate need of closure.
With the permission of Neymar’s mother, his aunt, Timisia Skeete spoke to Barbados Today on her behalf.
“We still looking for information and nobody knows, because nobody from the nursery came forward and explained to her [Neymar’s mother] what happened. Nobody offered condolences on behalf of the nursery. The same way they knew her number to let her know what happened, the owner of the nursery should have come forward and at least offered condolences to her as the mother and also to my brother as the father,” she said tearfully.
Skeete said the only contact between the family and the nursery came through a worker, who had a personal relationship with Neymar’s mother.
“We want to know what happened from the head of the nursery. You are the owner, it is your place to address the parents. This is not a toy; this is a child. This is someone’s child. You have to address the parents,” said the frustrated aunt.
“You need to state what happened, you need to offer condolences to the family . . . you can’t leave it there as if nothing has happened,” she asked.
Fighting to hold back tears, Skeete recounted the moments after she received the news that her nephew had passed away.
“I was on my way home from work and I thought he was joking, but I know him and I know he is not going to joke about something like that. He kept saying ‘the baby’ but he did not name the baby. So I kept asking him ‘whose baby died?’ Then he told me Neymar and I just paused in traffic. The light turned to ‘go’ and I could not move. I just started screaming in the car,” she recounted, as Neymar’s mother began sobbing loudly in the background.
Skeete said the news was the last thing she was expecting to hear as she had kept the baby as recently as Saturday. She explained that when they assembled at the Sandy Crest Medical Center, where young Neymar was carried and later pronounced dead, there was hysteria.
Skeete told Barbados TODAY that she saw Neymar as a son after she lost one of her own and says the pain has now doubled.
“He was my baby, I love him to death and everybody knows how I feel about him. He is always on my [social media] statuses; he was my baby, because honestly I lost a baby and I was in the hospital…but it’s like when he [Neymar] came, I fell in love with him from day one. He brought me comfort . . . and helped soothe me from how I felt after losing my baby,” she said.
Family members say they are awaiting an autopsy to find out the cause of death, but would only reveal that at the time of death, Neymar “was full of vomit.”
Switching their attention back to the nursery, family members called on the day-care’s management to come clean, noting that Neymar was a miracle for the family, given that his mother, Mishika Jules had complications during her pregnancy.
“This was his third day at this nursery. She even had reservations about going back out to work and securing a nursery, because as a mother, you are going to be protective… and then this happens,” said Skeete.
When Barbados TODAY visited the nursery on Wednesday afternoon, they appeared to be operating as usual. Staff said the owner was not on the compound and that they would be offering no comment on the developments.
Neymar’s maternal grandmother, Janice Edwards was reluctant to comment as she was “angry inside.”
“I was looking to spend Christmas with my grandchild; and you carried my grandchild healthy, after his father had him in the morning, kissing him and holding him and playing with him. Something is wrong,” she said.
kareemsmith@barbadostoday.bb
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