NORMA Belone is a defeated woman.

Sporting a bewildered look, Belone fought back tears as she tried to find a reason why her granddaughter, Aneika Dixon, aged 12, had taken her own life.

Last Tuesday, Aneika’s mother Tameka Nugent had returned from work about midday to find her daughter’s lifeless body crumpled underneath a mango tree at the back of her house with a cord around her neck.

The child’s two arms were outstretched and her eyes were open, but there was no sign of life as she shook her violently to get a response to her pleas for her to stop playing.

It was her brother and the child’s uncle, Andrew Belone who ushered her away from the dead child and informed her that little Aneika’s had passed away.

“Lord Jesus all now me can’t come to. She was a bright little child, all now me can’t stop bawl,” the elderly woman said as she stooped with her hand at her jaw.

Soon she fell silent and stared blankly at nothing.

Aneika had used a piece of rope to make a swing in committing the act. But Belone could not fathom how she hung herself and ended up in a sitting position.

At the spot where she met her tragic end, signs that a small fire had been lit were evident.

“Them say me must burn there, so she don’t take set there,” Belone said.

“Sometime me no think a she kill herself. Them say when you hang, you tongue come outa you mouth and her tongue never come out. It hard to live without the child who me and her used to play and laugh so much. A big piece of me gone,” she said.

Nugent also could not come to terms with losing a daughter whom she worked nights to fund an education and give her food, clothing and shelter.

“I am not doing well. She was a happy child with a bright future. I can’t find a reason why she would do that. I hardly beat her and she was looking forward to jeans day which would have been on Thursday. I don’t know how I am going to go on,” she said.

However, the Point Hill police who are investigating the child’s death, said that no foul play is suspected, while the investigations continue.

The residents of the farming district of Pusey in the hills of West Central St Catherine, were also at a loss as why the child took her own life.

“She was a lovely, brilliant child. We can’t come to terms with what happened,” one male neighbour said.

Aneika attended the Pusey Early Childhood Institution before graduating to the Point Hill All Age and Junior High School.

The grief was evident on the face of Latoya Gillespie-Morrison who taught Aneika at the early childhood level.

“You could see her brilliance from her infancy. It is a tragedy,” Gillespie-Morrison said.

Her sister Kerry Ann Gillespie-Bailey also teaches at the basic school and formed the same opinion about Aneika.

“She was a very brilliant child who was destined for greatness,” she said.

The population at the Point Hill All Age and Junior High School was also devastated by the tragic demise of one of their own, especially Aneika’s classmates and form teacher.

Principal Roy John-Kieth said that grief counsellors from the Ministry of Education were called in, and along with the school’s two guidance counsellors, had spent time with the students trying to get them to come to terms with Aneika’s untimely passing.

“She had ability. The child had no behavioural problems. Her form teacher is out of sorts,” he told the Sunday Observer.

Captions:

1422: Norma Belone is a picture of grief as she stoops with her hand at her jaw close to the spot where Aneika Dixon committed suicide.

1436: Aneika’s younger cousin walks from the humble dwelling that she occupied with her mother and younger sibling before she died.

1449: John-Kieth…the child had no behavioural problems.

(PHOTOS: MICHAEL GORDON)