HELP HELP HE NEEDS A WHEELCHAIR

THE rocky journey to Kevin Robinson’s humble abode in Sevens Heights, Clarendon, could not compare to his tumultuous life story.

Almost 18 years ago, at age 16, Robinson was robbed of the chance of ever living a normal life when a series of gunshots from the weapons of unknown men while he visited friends in downtown Kingston left him lying in his own blood, face down.

“Granny decided to send me to Kingston about age 13. She couldn’t care for me like she wanted to so she sent me to live with my father [George Robinson] and brothers so things would be easier. But while there I could not control my want for independence, because back here in the country [May Pen] with granny I used to sell my drinks, cheese trix, popcorn, banana chips, and other snacks to help out,” Robinson told the Jamaica Observer.

He said that this led him to a restaurant where he found friends and a small supportive unit outside his home. Robinson said that the relationship grew with his new friends and he often took his smaller cousins for walks so he could lyme, play football, and engage in endless hours of conscious exchanges.

But Robinson was not prepared for what would meet him on one of his casual Sunday evening strolls to interact with his co-workers and friends.

“I went up there with my cousins, as usual, to play as teenagers do. After being there for a while, we heard gunshots out of nowhere and everybody scattered. I panicked, and as soon as reality kicked in and I moved off, something stopped me again. I felt an object, something sharp and painful hit me in my back and I was on the ground. I couldn’t move. I just laid there and the last thing I remember was men, probably the same men who shot me, looking at me before walking away,” Robinson recalled the events of that fateful Sunday in December 1998.

“I don’t know if there was a community feud, I don’t know if man and man was in things, I just know that one minute I was playing, the next minute I couldn’t move, and my life at 16 was not what I wanted it to be,” Robinson said while fighting back the tears.

He spent a year at the Kingston Public Hospital (KPH) fighting for his life and hoping for a chance of a normal life, but he said that as the days passed he knew he would be living in a different world. He said his grandmother, Rubina Brown Robinson, entered the picture again to care for him until he was discharged, after which she took him to her Clarendon home.

Robinson lived with his grandmother and her husband while he continued to recuperate, but their life situation changed for the worse after he died. They were forced to live in a derelict, weather-beaten, wooden shack, with barely any resources and inadequate sanitary convenience. On the verge of collapse, a relative offered them a temporary place to rest their heads. But he soon needed the house and they had no choice but to return to their old home.

This has become burdensome to the two, with most of their nights spent crying and trying to come up with a plan to live.

“It has been a very difficult period for us and we are uncertain what to do or where to turn. We need somewhere to live. We have tried everything, and even Deacon Kevin Burrell comes and he has tried to help us to get a house from Food for the Poor, but we don’t have any land to put it on. We have tried everything but nothing has worked,” Robinson explained.

“It is just hard and it is stressful and it is very painful, because granny is my life and I am sorry that I am not able to help her,” Robinson continued.

Robinson’s fear of not having a place to rest his head is not the only thing that has affected his quality of life. His stress that accompanies his immobility has been heightened by the fact that he has outgrown his wheelchair. This has forced him to abandon his occasional trips, aided by his friend Tevin, to the football field, because this can be quite painful. “I can’t fit in the wheelchair anymore and because of that, when I try to use it there is pressure on my back and it leaves me in pain for days,” Robinson explained.

In the absence of a wheelchair, and as stifling as being trapped in the same place every day has been, Robinson has been able to catch up on hobbies and assist with chores.

“I help myself I pull out my hair and wash it, oil it and comb it, and wash my clothes. It’s even me change mi sheet an me spread mi bed. Even sometimes, like when granny has to go to church, I cook,” Kevin said.

“When I am cooking I call one of ma little friend, Tevin, I use two blocks, a piece a zinc, and then put the zinc on the two blocks and then put the stove on top of it. I have ma basin with mi fab and mi bleach and water and mi turn cross the bed so mi can cook,” Robinson stated, while praising his friend Tevin for helping him to get everything together and cleaning up afterwards.

But these are not the only things that Robinson is good at. He is also artistic, and is a creative writer. “Well, I like to read and I like to write, and I have a deep passion for drawing. Once I start to think of something I begin to put pen to paper and other things start flowing to my mind,” Robinson said.

He said that he wished there was a market for his art, or if he could do something that he could earn from, things would be better for him and his grandmother. But he needs a start.

“Yesterday, I was thinking that it has been 6,150 days since I have been shot. I am not going to tell you that it’s easily. It’s not, because for someone to lose their ability to move around and to be independent, it’s not easy. I just hope that I can get a wheelchair, and hopefully there is hope for grandma to get a chance to find a place to live, because every day I feel like I am drowning, like we are drowning, and nobody is hearing our screams,” Robinson pleaded.

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