Last weekend, Godfrey Bernard met his mother for only the second time since she gave birth to him 26 years ago.
That meeting at her home in Olympic Way filled a gaping hole in his existence. It also brought a wave of mixed emotions that he still finds difficult to describe.

"It was a good feeling," said the young man who was left as an infant at the Maxfield Park Children's Home. "It has been quite a while.

I knew, to some extent, what she looked like; but my life was like a mystery and getting to know her brought a sense of joy and that missing piece of the puzzle, that yearning, that void was filled." "You could see the joy in her face. She was speechless," he added.

The reunion of mother and son was triggered by several recent newspaper articles highlighting Bernard's achievements. He was contacted by a brother he had never met, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Bernard, 26, is no stranger to the limelight. On May 10, he received the Choices Magazine Young Achiever Award for 2004. The award was presented in recognition of his stellar academic performance despite instability in his home life, as well as financial and other problems he experienced while growing up in a state-run home.

Bernard explained that "financial problems" forced his mother, Violet Richards, to place him in the home. She had three other mouths to feed.

Over the years, he struggled to make something of himself. But the faint memory of his mother haunted him.
"There were many ups and downs, many struggles. One of the biggest one was keeping focussed, not knowing who my mother was. Not knowing was a burden to me," he said.

His mother first visited him when he was eight years old and, for the first time, he had an answer to the mystery of what she looked like.

The meeting also left him with enough hope to continue to work hard with the dream of one day seeing her again.
The ambitious and hard-working youth, a former student of Dunoon Technical, spent 14 years at the Maxfield Park Children's Home and 12 years in foster care.

At age 13, he was sent to live with a foster mother who put him to work selling fruits on the streets. The many chores he was assigned often caused him to miss school. He ran away soon after and went back to the state-run home.

A year later, he was placed in another foster home, this time with God-fearing parents, Paul and Andrea Russell, and their three children. Together, the family provided a stable source of spiritual, financial and moral support for Bernard.

With part funding from the Students' Loan Bureau, he completed a degree in electronics and computer studies at the University of the West Indies last year. He graduated with first-class honours and his collective grades placed him among the top five per cent of graduates.

Bernard now works as a switch engineer, operating and maintaining GSM mobile nodes for Digicel in Kingston.
Claudette Hemmings, the regional director for the south east region at the Child Development Agency, believes Bernard's achievements are exemplary.

Currently, she said, there are some 2500 children living in 62 public and private residential child care institutions across the island and more than 1,065 are in foster care. Many have never seen their biological parents or siblings, and few excel.

"It shows what good foster care can do," she said.
But to Bernard, his achievements are the crowning glory of years of much study, patient sacrifice and determination. He recalls once hearing staff at the home comment that few of its young residents ever "come out to anything good". That only motivated him to work harder.

He plans to go much further in his career. Now he is studying part-time towards a Masters degree in digital technology at the UWI and gives faithful community service through the Kiwanis Club of St Andrew, where he is a member.

One of his two main goals now is to "live a life that other people can benefit, to inspire others".
The other is to meet his father whom he has never seen.

If you know of another legitimate story to be told, one that deserves our Pride of Jamaica stamp, email us at editorial@jamaicaobserver.com or fax us at 968-2025. You may also call Pete Sankey at 511-2460, Charmaine Clarke at 511-2432, Lavern Clarke at 511-2591 or Vernon Davidson at 511-2435.

Mothers can't father

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'