When reggae singer Ernie Smith

recorded the classic tear-jerking ballad I

Can’t Take It in 1967, he admitted it wasn’t from firsthand experience with

heartbreak. But when he belted the song at his wife’s memorial service on

Saturday, the lyrics could not bear the weight of the pain in his voice.

But baby

Every nightI wake up crying

Tears on mypillow, pain in my heart

And you onmy mind…

Janet Smith, 73, died on July 1

after battling an illness which lasted over 12 months. Ernie was joined by a

few loved ones at an undisclosed hotel, where he reflected on the love of his

life and former manager.

“I will miss her,” the Ride On Sammy singer said. “There

is only but one consolation, one ray of light, one comfort: she went home to

her maker with a smile on her face… Walk good.”

The couple first locked eyes

while they were students at York Castle High in St Ann. Ernie was 13 and Janet

was 11, but he never realised he liked her until it was time for them to

graduate.

Janet, who was described as an

academically gifted child, decided to go to England to study nursing. It was

there that she met her first husband and had her two sons. The marriage was

short-lived and Janet went on to expand her education with studies in history

and business. She also became involved in activism, protesting in Liverpool and

Manchester against racial injustice, at a time when the apartheid system was

still prevalent in South Africa. She soon met a Guyanese national whom she

married in 1980, and moved to Guyana with her sons where she worked in media. A

series of events forced her to relocate to the United States, and her marriage

did not survive the move.

She eventually returned to

Jamaica where she reunited with Ernie in 1990. He had also been married and

divorced, with children of his own. He was no longer just ‘Glenroy Smith’ from

school, but one of reggae’s finest vocalists and songwriters, recording a slew

of hits like Pitta Patta, Duppy Gunman and Life Is Just For Living. But Ernie was also battling alcohol abuse,

which started in the 70s. He decided to get clean in 1993 with the help of

Janet and close friends.

After their reunion, Janet

returned to New York where she ghosted him for several weeks. It hit Ernie that

it was time to put a ring on her finger, except his former habits had left him

penniless, unable to buy a ring. Taking her to a romantic spot, he proposed

with a paperclip, and she accepted. The two got married in 1994, and

“finished each other’s sentences” over the next 26 years.

“She made such a wonderful,

formidable thing out of my career…” Ernie added. But Janet said otherwise.

Yes, she recorded her most

intimate thoughts prior to her death, some of which were played during the

service.

“He would say I turned his

career around but Glenroy did for me what I couldn’t do for him,” she

said. “He took me to France, he took me to Germany, he took me to

Barbados, he took me to Trinidad, Belize… I have passed through at least 100

counties because Ernie Smith was going there to sing and when I got there I was

treated like a star…”

Among her wishes were to be

cremated (as too her husband when he transitions) and to have her two sons

speak of “the mother who fathered them”. Her requests were honoured

at the service, which unfolded via Zoom with more than 300 attendees.