RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

There was no clo­sure, no fu­ner­al and no joy in their prepa­ra­tion for the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment (SEA) ex­am, but promis­es from their fa­ther, miss­ing rig work­er Pe­te Phillip, kept Josi­ah and Justin Phillip push­ing for­ward.

Af­ter wiring the SEA ex­am, both boys woke up yes­ter­day morn­ing feel­ing sad, as they re­mem­bered their fa­ther’s promise to buy them bi­cy­cles and a phone when they com­plet­ed the ex­am.

Al­though they are a year apart, the broth­ers are pray­ing to go to dif­fer­ent schools.

Justin, 12, wants to get in­to St Bene­dict’s Col­lege, and dreams of be­com­ing a lawyer and play­ing foot­ball. Josi­ah, 13, wants to at­tend San Fer­nan­do Cen­tral Sec­ondary School.

“The bus pass­es right here and I have a friend who goes to there so I want to pass for that school. It would be eas­i­er for me and my moth­er,” he said.

But while his broth­er wants to be­come a lawyer, Josi­ah said he hopes to serve dif­fer­ent­ly.

“I want to be­come a fight­er jet pi­lot. I want to fight for the coun­try,” he said.

The broth­ers said the road to SEA was not easy for them or their moth­er, Can­da­cy Phillip, who had to guide them through grief and school­work at the same time while jug­gling a preg­nan­cy and two young daugh­ters. 

The ba­by, who is now six weeks old, is named Jer­von Pe­te Phillip, af­ter their fa­ther.

Justin and Josi­ah said be­ing around the ba­by eased their mind and helped them to cope with school, lessons and chores.

Re­call­ing the stress of the ex­am, Josi­ah said: “I felt ner­vous writ­ing SEA yes­ter­day. Plen­ty peo­ple does say it is hard but when you write it it’s easy. I feel re­lieved that it is done.”

When asked how he coped with the pres­sure, Josi­ah paused be­fore giv­ing his re­ply.

“I don’t re­al­ly know,” he said.

He re­mem­bered how his fa­ther would pre­pare their school clothes.

“Dad­dy told us he would give us $60 per day when sec­ondary school start­ed,” Josi­ah re­vealed.

Justin said deal­ing with the loss of their fa­ther is a test of its own. He said watch­ing their moth­er cope was en­cour­ag­ing as she tried to give her chil­dren a nor­mal life.

Can­da­cy said watch­ing her sons pre­pare for SEA while deal­ing with their fa­ther’s dis­ap­pear­ance was painful, but she knew she had to stay strong for them.

“I told them just do their best even when it hurt­ing,” she said, adding that Phillip had al­ways en­cour­aged the boys to dream big.

She said she hoped Phillip’s re­mains would be re­cov­ered so they could fi­nal­ly get clo­sure.

Phillip, 47, an off­shore work­er, went miss­ing when Rig 110, op­er­at­ed by Well Ser­vices Pe­tro­le­um, col­lapsed in­to the ocean in the Her­itage Off­shore East Field, south of Trinidad, near the Trin­mar base in Point Fortin on De­cem­ber 22.

Be­tween De­cem­ber 23 and 30, the Coast Guard and sup­port teams searched the area. Divers and ves­sels scanned the wreck­age, but Phillip’s body was not found. Search ef­forts have of­fi­cial­ly end­ed, but the re­cov­ery op­er­a­tion re­mains on hold pend­ing the ar­rival and de­ploy­ment of spe­cialised equip­ment.