Sharon Miller admits that she finds joy and comfort in the WhatsApp messages she shared with her grandson David Minott, even as the pain of his death remains heavy.

The 16-year-old drowned during a church trip at Sommerset Falls in Hope Bay, Portland, on May 22, a few days before his family was set to celebrate the birthday of his grandfather, reggae singer Sugar Minott.

Police had reported that about 2:00 pm, David, who attended Wolmer’s Boys’ School, was among a group of people who went swimming. He was last seen alive sitting on a rock shortly before a lifeguard found his body below the surface of the water. The lifeguard administered CPR, but David did not respond. He was taken to hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The boy’s death has left his family devastated and in her attempt to cope, his grandmother shared that on Friday, May 27, after charging his cellphone overnight, she went through some of the WhatsApp messages she had exchanged with him over time.

“I got up in the morning and I said, let me go and look at the conversations that we had; I cracked up the whole day. I laughed so much because our conversations were not normal,” Miller said.

Sharing one of the text messages, she said, “He had changed his WhatsApp picture where he had on a cap. I texted him when the picture came up to tell him, ‘I like it, it look like yuh handsome’. Him text me back and say ‘I am handsome’ and I replied, ‘Conceited’. I couldn’t stop laughing,” Miller told the Jamaica Observer.

Her grandson, she recalled, was always eager to express himself.

“Even though he was not a social media person, he would show me stuff on TikTok and say, ‘Grandma, look here’. If him see anything like a nice car he would say, ‘Grandma, that car shot’. That was his way of saying things look good, or when I cook and I say, ‘David, come taste this for me’ — because I have sinus [problem] and wouldn’t be able to taste it — he would come and say, ‘This shot, how you do this?’,” she shared.

Describing her grandson as an exceptional young man, Miller said it was hard to find a trait about him that was displeasing.

“If I could find something that was just wrong about him, it would dull the pain, but I cannot find anything. I loved him before he was born; I prayed for his mother to have him. I can’t pinpoint my favourite memory with him because everything was so special. Not because he was Sugar Minott’s grandson, David was his own person,” she explained.

“My grandson never changed his tone and there was never a change in his attitude. If you call him 100 times for the day he still behaved the same, it was always ‘Yes, grandma’, it was never a bother,” Miller said.

She said she wants him to be remembered for his honesty, integrity, forgiveness and a source of inspiration to other youngsters.

“David had determination, he was meticulous and helpful and had good reasoning skills. The impact I want David to have on children is for them to understand that they can strive, no matter their adversities or difficult circumstances. They can be focused and get things done,” Miller said.