Love story ends for homeless couple
...partner dies in shopping cart without help
Richard Charan South Bureau
Wednesday, May 14th 2008
In the shadow of Mahatma Gandhi's Statue on Harris Promenade, San Fernando, is a shopping cart that was the bed and home of Cynthia Ramcharan for a month.
Cynthia died in that cart on the weekend. She was 45.
In her final days, she appeared to be twice that age, her body a bag of bones, every semblance of womanhood gone. She died on Mother's Day. Somewhere is the daughter she had when she was young.
Cynthia's death went unnoticed to many who use the city. Most turned away, crossed the road, stepped into a store on seeing the approach of the man pushing her in the shopping cart. To accept them was to accept that we were failing our brothers and sisters.
Cynthia's death brought to an end a love story found in no Mills and Boon novel. No one knew or cared for her in her final days but Sylvester Joseph. He is 65, going on 85, walking on feet engorged with pus, eyes bloodshot and tear-filled.
He spoke with the Express last week. Two years ago, he said, the house he owned in Sea Lots burned. Cynthia was with him. He said they were asleep.
She woke him and got him out of the house.
"My life-saver. She saved me. I would have roasted like a barbecue chicken if not for her," he said. "So tell me how I could ever leave a woman like that".
So he stayed with Cynthia, both joining the mass of sub-humans living in the capital.
A homeless friend told them it was easier to survive on the streets of San Fernando. So they came a month ago. Cynthia was a prostitute, selling her body for money and drugs on the streets of Port of Spain, her family living in one of the villages of New Grant near Princes Town.
Cynthia ended up in the cart when a gang of homeless people prowling at night beat her on her knees.
Sylvester said he made sure she was comfortable, carrying her in his arms when needed, cleaning, feeding, bathing, like a father would a baby.
It was decision day last Monday. Sylvester needed money. He had a disability cheque to collect in Laventille where he is from originally. But how could he leave her behind, he said. No one would take her.
"All she drinks is milk in little sips, But I have no more. And the prices going up. I beg her to go hospital. She say not at all. She is afraid of the place."
To the few who stopped to hear, Syvester would beg, "Could someone get a doctor to come on the promenade to see Cynthia?" He promised to buy whatever medication was needed. "And could they check her ears? She said they were paining."
At the Gandhi Statue on Monday, three homeless people sat near the shopping cart. They said they were guarding Sylvester's belongings. He had gone into Port of Spain to get his disability grant. He planned to use it to bury his love.
