WESTMORELAND, Jamaica – A heavy cloud of grief hovered over the Tomlinson family home in Belmont, Westmoreland on Wednesday as they tried to process the death of Alexis Tomlinson. The educator’s sudden passing, five days before Christmas, has put a damper on their holiday celebration.

A Social Studies teacher and librarian at Lacovia High School in St Elizabeth, Alexis is suspected to have died in her sleep Wednesday morning.

READ: Lacovia High mourns sudden death of ‘bubbly’ teacher

“It [Christmas] just dead, it just dead! Christmas will never be the same without Alexis,” her distraught father, Enos Tomlinson, told Observer Online on Wednesday afternoon.

The father said Alexis, his eldest daughter, was enthusiastically anticipating Christmas and had already started her preparation for the festive season. He is saddened that he will not get to spend it with her.

“Alexis seh ‘daddy we nuh have no money enuh, but wi a guh spend wi Christmas good. We haffi spend Christmas good and mi glad seh all of us are here’,” Enos recounted with teary eyes.

“Yesterday, she get up and she start to clean up the house,” he added.

The father, who walked with his daughter every morning to catch the bus for work, is struggling to cope with her sudden loss.

“Alexis is the first daughter, she was so good to me and everyone in the house. If mi seh Alexis mi head a pain me, she want mi if go doctor. If mi seh mi hungry, she want me to look food same time. She was nice to everybody. Mi miss her, mi miss her!”

Enos said he is deeply concerned about his late daughter’s son who recently celebrated his third birthday, in October.

Alexis’ mother Sandra, who found her unresponsive shortly after 7:00am on Wednesday, disclosed that her daughter suffered from a brain disorder.

“I left to wash some clothes and when I came back in she wasn’t responding when I called her. That’s when I called her daddy and her daddy come and we turn her over and she [still] wasn’t responding and I called a few friends and they say maybe she is in a coma, and they take her away to the hospital,” she recalled.

Sandra said when she phoned her husband for an update, he told her that she had passed.

“She had a brain problem where the fluid backed up to the brain, but she had surgery done two years ago to remove some of the fluid,” the mother told Observer Online.

However, despite Alexis’ health condition, her mother said her death is shocking to the family.

“We weren’t looking for her to die like that, but God knows everything. When the blocking out takes her, it is not for long. She is a jovial person and anything that she doesn’t feel pleased about she will tell you, and she is very helpful.”

Meanwhile, her cousin Danna-Ray ‘Punchie Scott said she is in disbelief.

“When I was pregnant with my son, every day she would carry a book for me to read. Words can’t express how I am feeling. Right now I can’t believe seh Alexis is gone. Mi just cyan come to my senses now,” she said as tears flooded her cheeks.

The cousin said when she got the call that her cousin died she broke down immediately.

“Mi couldn’t do nothing, mi just drop down inna a tears, and mi start cry. Mi just take a taxi and go hospital. It just coming like she a sleep. This has put a damper on Christmas for the family,” Scott said.