The crying crowds are gone, even as the candlelight vigils continue across the country and even abroad. Nearly a week after the funeral for his only child, when a stunned nation rallied behind him with their pink umbrellas, butterflies and t-shirts, while chanting her famous name, bereaved father Randolph Bharrat is trying to keep busy but struggling to cope with it the devastating loss.
In his tidy, bright green house, barricaded with burglar bars, in the town of Arima in northeastern Trinidad, weeping strangers come over with their children large and small during the day to pay their respects and offer support, and eventually advised by the very man they traveled from every corner to comfort.
Nightmares are the worst for the brave, dedicated auto-technician, because this is when his brainy little 23-year-old daughter, the bright-eyed Andrea Bharrat, would have walked in, smiling as usual, after coming home safely to her dear Father, from his position as a young clerk at Arima Court. The widow admits to the Trinidad Express, now, “It’s like I’m in a big black hole.” Mr Bharrat now has no heart to keep working, and tells the media house he is retiring, because he will not labor to “think criminals behind bars.”
On Monday, the sisters and relatives of high school math teacher, the beloved Juliet Tam, remembered what would have been her 60th birthday. They are still waiting in vain for answers that may never come, some three and a half decades after she was abducted and disappeared, just after 7pm on Thursday, December 5, 1985, while on a routine walk to her fitness classes within just five blocks of her Arima home.
His sister Stephanie wrote, “We haven’t heard anything since,” admitting that the kidnapping and murder of Miss Bharrat, who disappeared on January 30th, has been particularly painful for the family.
“The past two weeks have brought back so many memories and emotions that I have managed over the years ….. feelings of anger and fear and resignation. I can only say ……. But God. We don’t live like those without hope, ”he said in a social media post.
The capture of Miss Tam was a defining moment in the twins’ memory of public trauma and persistent private pain, a sinister harbinger of scores of other unresolved cases of missing persons in the scary years since. She was preparing to be a bridesmaid at a wedding that Saturday, and she was almost finished sewing her own dress.
“I remember her dress… .. a light blue type of chiffon dress with detailed bodice? I believe. I was young … but I remember there was a wedding she was preparing for, ”Stephanie remembered. In an old photograph the slender adult Juliet holds her little white sister, Stephanie, tight against a lush background of brilliant red ginger lily.
Another sister, Marcia, replied, “Yes, she was sewing the bridesmaid dress. He was in bed unfinished when he went missing. ”
The mystery of what happened to Miss Tam haunts Trinidadians to this day. Students at the convent’s high school where he taught called her a formidable tutor, others remembered a beautiful, gentle and peaceful person, a skilful table tennis player.
“Andrea’s tragedy brought back memories of Juliet that I shared with my children,” one woman admitted. Another acknowledged, “So much pain not knowing what happened to it I ALWAYS think of it … I’ve never given up hope. Always wonder and still remember when it happened and always pray and hope. Lest we forget. “
A student reflected, “She was my maths teacher at the Convent … This was my first experience with something so deeply criminal. I was 12 years old then. It was the beginning of abduction … I’m 47 (years) now … And nothing has changed. “
Another pointed out the “unspeakable grief in this country for so many mothers (and fathers and siblings). After the shouting, the marching, the ‘mouths,’ it’s still going on. Some of us tried to… learn, share, try to change hearts and behaviors, empower and strengthen – just to find that there wasn’t much real support out there, because that’s the long way uphill, far too difficult. Only the Lord knows. ”
In the midst of loss and mental distress, a cousin remembered Juliet older by 10 years. “His story made me much more wary of people. It is tragic that her disappearance was never resolved. ”
A student from Miss Tam’s alma mater, St Augustine’s Girls’ High School, called her “the original kidnapping victim,” expressing concern that she had not reached out to the family. “This was an exciting story on the same wavelength as Andrea’s crime. The news media was alive and imagined that social media was not even invented. I prayed that it would be found. Hope wherever she is she is at peace. So sad that we are so advanced and yet our women continue to be more vulnerable than ever. ”
Miss Tam’s sibling Marcia posted, “We’ve lived without knowing what happened to you for 35 of those years. Juliet, you know that if you are alive we love and think of you every day and pray and hope that one day we will know the truth. ”
She continued, “Couple (of) years ago someone reached out to say that she saw Juliet back in 2003 in the Brooklyn area, Queens of New York (United States of America) when they were looking for the Church of the Holy Cross where Father was. Ian Taylor was saying mass. ”
“Here’s reaching out to anyone who lives in that area to say if the picture is jarring to anyone who might look like her. Also, if anyone knows of a good DP (private investigator) working in the NY area please let me know. Thank you to everyone who has reached out over the years and who continues to keep her memory alive. ”
Meanwhile, in Andrea Bharrat’s simple bedroom, with its many certificates, trophies and books, a lone candle flashes on.
ID hears the warning words, “We have become a Little Red Riding Hood country. The kid goes to the store for sweets and never returns, ”prominent Trinidad attorney Vernon De Lima said at a press conference years ago.