One of the most challenging times in life is to lose a loved one, especially parents. More painful is seeing them getting buried or cremated. Recovering from their death often takes a lot of time and is quite challenging. People often visit the graves of their close ones to offer flowers; the engraving on the tombstone makes them feel that the deceased is still there. Imagine the pain of a child, who could not bid adieu to her father before death, and a few years later, she discovered that his grave was missing. Joseph Lynch and his wife, Greta had moved to Barbados after he retired as a police officer. The couple wanted to enjoy their final years in the sunny region. In 2014, Joseph was suddenly diagnosed with prostate cancer and he died on November 20 at the age of 81. His daughter, Susanna who was working in the prison service at that time immediately rushed to catch a flight to Barbados with her brother, but they could not make it in time to bid him farewell.
The family held a funeral on December 5, 2014, and requested a motorcycle escort for Joseph’s final journey, but the Barbados authorities were slow to respond and the family could not opt for the motorcycle escort.
In August 2022, Susanna returned to Barbados once more, and this time with her husband Brian. She wanted to visit sooner, but due to the pandemic, there was limited access to the Caribbean island. She visited the cemetery and realised that something was wrong. She walked to the exact spot where her father was buried and she kept looking for the wooden cross with his name, but could not find anything.
As per reports in the Metro, her father’s grave was missing. Susanna shared with the news portal, “The entire grave was gone. My husband said ‘Are you sure this is the right place?’, I felt like I was going mad. I kept walking to the same spot, but my father wasn’t there.” They found a staff member who gave them the most devastating news. After five years, graves at the cemetery in Barbados were dug up and the bodies were moved into a large ‘bone hole’. Such practices are followed in Singapore, Germany and Belgium.
While it was a common practice on this Caribbean island as well, Joseph’s family was not warned about it. Even the natives were not aware of such practices. Susanna shared that she did not have the words to explain the ordeal and how she felt upon finding out that her father was in that bone hole. “He wanted to be buried in the place he loved and we’d had so many happy memories in Barbados, but now it’s just a nightmare.”
Susanna returned to her country and started reaching out to the ministers and politicians. Gillingham North councillor Adam Price assured to help her. She received an apology letter from the office of Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley and offered her “sincere apology” for the distress she suffered. She wanted more than an apology and demanded the abolishment of such rules.
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