WHEN news broke last Saturday that deejay Wayne ‘Captain Barkey’ Hamilton was shot and killed in the car park of a New York hotel, it was another big blow for his mother Irene Clarke.

She lost another son to violence 10 years ago. Now, she has to deal with that pain all over again.

“In the name of Jesus, I am standing strong. I know that everything happens for a purpose,” Sister Clarke, as she is known in church circles, said in an interview with the Jamaica Observer.

Barkey and his lover Tracy Bennett were shot and killed by her ex-boyfriend as they left the hotel early Saturday morning.

The shooter, a Haitian, killed himself yesterday in Miami.

Sister Clarke, 82, said on Sunday morning when she was preparing for church, three members of her congregation at Portmore Missionary visited her home in Portmore. Then came the heartbreaking news.

“I said, ‘Jesus! You are God alone’ and I just started praising Him.”

Sister Clarke says she is holding onto her faith to see her through.

Reflecting on her son’s life, Sister Clarke remembered him as loving and obedient. The fourth of her nine children, Barkey, she said, was “a most blessed boy. When I scolded him and told him not to move, he would sit by the house side and look so pitiful that I eventually felt sorry for him and called him inside.”

She said growing up, Barkey never smoked or drank. He was responsible as an adult, joining the Jamaica Defence Force in his 20s.

Later, he had big hits with songs like Go Go Wine and Bun fi Bun.

“I never lacked anything, he would always ensure that I was properly taken care of. He was the one who paid the bills, bought me food, bought me clothes. He was like my backbone,” she said.

Sister Clarke recalls regular ‘reasoning’ sessions with Barkey. It was during one of those sit-downs that she advised him against the relationship which eventually cost him his life.

“I spoke to him and said, ‘remember you have a wife’. He didn’t answer, just held his head down.”

Three of his children live with her. His death has been hard for them as well.

“When their father died, they were crying a lot but I told them their daddy time had come and if they continued to cry, I would too,” she said.

When and where Captain Barkey will be buried is still uncertain as according to Sister Clarke, some of his friends want him to be buried at Up Park Camp, headquarters of the JDF. But his wife, who lives in Milwaukee in the United States Midwest, believes it is too expensive to take his body back to Jamaica.

“God will work things out when it comes on to expenses. I’d really like her to do me a favour. Please let me see my son’s face for the last time.”