Mom, 32, with 8 children cries for help

Both herself and her common-law husband Rodville Wallace were raking in enough money to take care of their eight children.

But by the turn of the new year the family’s fortune took a dramatic turn for the worse.

Her partner, with whom they have produced seven children together, suffered a freak accident at home in January leaving him paralyzed with x-ray images showing a fractured spine.

"Him did go outside fi peepee and him slide and drop. Rain did fall,” Robinson recalled in an interview with Old Harbour News.

Since that unfortunate January morning, Robinson said life has been extremely miserable for the family, as they struggle to find the basic necessities of life such as food.

"We not even eat sometimes,” she said. “Mi have a good friend, sometimes mi call her and she will help me out. She offer mi something so mi can cook for them."

Mr Wallace has already completed two three-month courses of therapy on his spinal injury, but luckily for the articulated heavy duty equipment driver his boss assists him with the associated cost for treatment.

However, that's all the help they really get at the moment.

Their struggle is not only financial but psychological and mental. Last month Dagea’s 22-year-old brother Hakeem Robinson drowned in a river nearby in their community of Bartons, situated north of Old Harbour, causing more heartache and pain for the family.

Her brother had become the main breadwinner due to her partner's physical disability.

"Right now it have been really, really rough… because before my brother died he used to work and help me. But on the passing of him it beginning to get really hard,” she said, her voice welling up with emotions. 

Her brother would be the one who would make it his duty on appointment days to take his brother-in-law from the house to the main road – a quarter of a mile journey of a hilly terrain that doesn’t facilitate wheelchair. 

"It's a challenge to get him out a road and fi get him back up," she lamented of her current predicament, which highlights the many ways in which her deceased brother is so sadly missed.

These days she continues to hope and pray that her children's father will return to lead a normal life. However, such a wish is dependent on a successful surgery, which is seems the only alternate now. But according to Robinson, the specialists have first decided on having a MRI done to determine if the bone maybe cancerous, she said. Cost for the MRI is $42,000 but she’s bracing herself for the price of the surgery which will likely cost a few millions.

"He's a hardworking father. He works hard to take care of his children,” said the Myersville, St Elizabeth native, who has been living with Wallace at his three-bedroom Bartons home 10 years now.

Six of the children should be in school, but only her 13-year-old son is presently able to access online classes, she said. The others: ages 10, eight, seven and four, are yet to experience any form of learning since the new school year began.

"They have nothing to start online school. Not even book. Nothing at all. Mi son have a tablet but a scholarship him get it off of from him school. So with his tablet it's hard for me to share it with the others because him have to do the live class and him a do 14 subjects,” said the mother in a frustrating tone.

Robinson told Old Harbour News that she met Wallace when her first child, now 17, was 18 months old. They became involved years later and had their first child, a boy now 13, as a couple.

Their family expanded quite rapidly over the next few years, but according to Robinson – who has a two-month-old baby after giving birth to a baby girl in 2019 – "most of her kids" were conceived while she was on contraceptive.

Taking care of them though wasn't an issue, said the bammy seller, until tragedy struck twice in eight months this year.

Her current situation is a test of faith likened to the biblical Job, she believes. 

There is a makeshift coop in the yard that she would like to utilize as a poultry farm venture, but lacks the financial capital to start.

"If mi could get some assistance fi raise some chicken weh mi could a help mi self. Because fi mi go out to work it ago really hard fi go out to work and leave him at the present time now,” said the mother who used to sell her produce at the Old Harbour Bay market.

'Mi never know that things could a get so hard,” she adds. “Mi never know it could reach to this. Mi reach out to nuff people but no help.

'Mi only have three of the kids on PATH (Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education) and each time mi go fi do the registration fi do the next one them tell mi that them not registering.

'Mi wish if somebody, anybody out there; mi just wish mi could get some help."

She still clings on to the hope of seeing her partner being able to support his family.

"Right now if mi could a just mek one wish is to just wish that mi baby father do the surgery to get back on his feet so him can able fi help me fi tek care of the pickney dem again," she said.

Editor’s Note: If you are interested in helping Dagea Robinson call 876 919 5276.