"Loving, thoughtful, caring, intelligent, kind, humble, friendly, determined, joyful, focused, beautiful, energetic, generous, faithful, witty and courageous" are the sixteen adjectives used by Gerard Sampson to describe his sixteen year old sister, Christy Alice Sampson, at her Funeral Mass on Thursday August 2, 2001.
In her short life on this earth, it would seem that anyone with whom Christy came into contact was touched in a special way, no matter how short the encounter. To the second eulogist, her cousin 21 year old Nikkia Nicholls "she served as an inspiration even before she became ill." And to another eulogist, Margaret Bourne, who had only met her in hospital in June of this year where they were both patients, Christy, who introduced herself as Christy spelt Christ with a Y, was a "glorious sunflower."
There were five eulogists for this "one girl", the second of Joyce and the late Desmond Sampson's two children, who according to her 20 year old brother was "nothing short of a blessing - that is how I must characterise our relationship, because having a sister as extraordinary as she, has been a miraculous gift."
And although I had never met Christy Alice, praying for her Sunday after Sunday for months in church, I found out that she was the great granddaughter of the late Amy Henry, former manager of the teachers' hostel on Woodford Street, who I had known from my birth. Speaking to Joyce, a private tutor, who has helped countless students through the Common Entrance examination, it was obvious that she is still struggling with the grief of suddenly losing her husband on the morning of February 26, 1998, as she spoke in soft and gentle tones about her beautiful daughter, her second great loss in a mere three years.
A constant savannah jogger, Desmond, who was a professional photographer, had jogged as usual on the morning of his death, dressed for work and organised his equipment as he planned to get pictures of an expected eclipse that day. On going downstairs to his car became ill, asphyxiated on the acid in his stomach and was pronounced dead on arrival at the Port of Spain General Hospital. In retrospect, says Joyce, who quietly celebrated her birthday last Friday August 10, "Christy's illness may have started before the death of her father but we really do not know. On the day after her Common Entrance Examination she had taken in with a temperature which lasted for ten to twelve days, not responding to anything, and just as suddenly as it appeared it disappeared."
Christy spent one year at Bishop's Centenary College, followed by two years at St James Government Secondary, and apart from her father's death, was a happy and energetic youngster who loved ballet. However, right after her Dad's death, Joyce noticed that "she felt really tired and stopped enjoying her dance at the Bentley Potter School which previously she thoroughly enjoyed, she danced but did not want to as often." Thinking Christy was somewhat depressed from her father's passing, Joyce started getting counselling for her daughter "as she did not handle her father's death very well, she just ignored it, and did not cry. It was only in the last week of her life she admitted how much she missed him and also her fear of placing flowers on his grave the day of his burial as she was afraid she would have been sucked into the grave."
In August 1998, Joyce took Christy to New York on holiday thinking it would be good for her where "she had a low grade temperature and the short walks which would have been invigorating caused pains in her legs." By mid August Christy was running a really high temperature, followed by diarrohea and ague. Several courses of antibiotics and several blood tests were done to see if she had brought back some kind of bug from the United States as she was not responding to normal fever medication. Other tests showed that the protrusion in the lining of her intestines which help to push food along had all disappeared.
And although there was no conclusive diagnosis for lupus, in the absence of any other disease, Christy was given mega doses of steroids, but developed inflamation of the lining of the heart. There was no more school for Christy that year. She began to show some improvement, was discharged by December and her doctors began weaning her off the steroids.
In 1999, Christy continued at St James Secondary, missing a lot of school, but always in very good spirits, always very positive and very happy, enjoying excellent relationships with her school friends two of whom read remembrances for Christy, never letting on she was suffering. The tentative diagnosis of "lupus", one of the auto immune diseases remained and by May 1999 there was kidney involvement. "Through it all" says her deeply grieved mother "she was remarkable, she gave us strength."
By September, Christy's cherished dream came to pass and she was admitted to Bishop Anstey High School in Form Four. Some improvement came about but in May 2000 she became very ill and spent six weeks at the Mount Hope Pediatric Unit. A visit to a doctor of joint diseases in New York followed because "we wanted to avail ourselves of treatment options" says Joyce "and at the same time we went to John Hopkins where it was found that Christy was too young for an experimental programme, you had to be 18."
Back home, her first two chemotherapy sessions went well and there appeared to be some progress. However, after the third dose on May 17, this brave teenager developed pulmonary hypertension and was in and out of hospital for the last two months of her life. But it was not yet all over for Christy, who was determined to do her CXC examinations, last June. "She did one, missed two in hospital, begged to be discharged to do another but the pain became too severe in the examination room and she had to stop" says Joyce "she was very distressed about that as she felt the Geography paper was a lovely one and would have liked to do it. I decided we were not going to try for any more exams this year."
Joyce is comforted by the fact that in the last two weeks of her life Christy did a lot of the things she wanted to do: "The beach twice, Father Carl Williams took her to tea at Mt St Benedict, and we went to the Mall exactly one week before her death." Minutes before she died Christy teased her mother "if you are late for church, slip in the back and do not disturb the priest. She was giving me a message as I am sometimes late." Finally she said to her mother "I am ready to go" and by three minutes to three in the afternoon, was gone. passed away at the Woodbrook home of her grandmother, Audrey Nicholls.
"She touched many lives positively and for that we are grateful" says Joyce of her Baby C (Christy's e-mail address), who was laid to rest in the same plot with her beloved father whom she missed terribly in the last days of her life, at Laperyouse Cemetery.