HOWELL’S CONTENT, Clarendon — The last eight months have been a nightmare for the family of eight-year-old Xavier “AJ” Phillips, who was fatally shot when armed men opened fire on a group of football players early one Sunday morning. His parents have lost their will to live and his grandmother blames herself for his death. The fact that no one has been brought to justice for his death is like salt being poured into an open wound.

Twenty-seven-year-old Britni Berry wears the grief of her only child’s death like a heavy cloak. She tries not to listen to the inner voice that, soon after he was killed, began telling her she had no reason to live. The way in which her son died, she said, brought back unwelcome memories of the horror she felt when her father was shot and killed in February.

“Sometimes I have some thoughts like me nuh badda waah live no more because mi nuh have nothing a live for anymore,” Berry told the Jamaica Observer, her face wet with tears.

The pain is intense as she grieves the loss of not one, but two of her babies.

“I buried my son September and ended up in the hospital October [where I] lost another boy again at six months, as a result of this,” she explained. “His father is still hurt and affi a keep busy because if him stay one place him a guh bawl every day. He has even stopped working because he says he has no one to work for as AJ was also his only child.”

The tragedy has also taken a toll on Xavier’s grandmother, Eva Brown, who, Berry said, is blaming herself for his death. The young boy, who lived with his paternal relatives in Northern Clarendon, was on holidays with his mother and maternal relatives in Howell’s Content in the southern end of the parish when he was killed.

“She keep saying she took him from his home to spend time with her and subsequently caused his death. She is taking it very hard,” said Berry.

Her son, she said, had been “a very helpful child”.

“He was a brilliant child; he wanted to know everything and you had to explain it to him. I was never looking for dis, because mi nuh trouble people,” she said.

The family longs to hear that the young boy’s killers have been caught. Efforts by the Observer to get an update from the lawman initially working the case at the Four Paths Police station were unsuccessful. A female cop who was on duty when the Observer visited said her colleague had been transferred to another police division and that she was unable to say who has been assigned the cases he was working on before he left.

“All now no police nuh call mi and update mi. I just heard news along the way that those who did it were caught. Dem nuh tell mi nothing, nothing mi nuh hear almost a year now,” said Berry. “Mi only hear people a say police catch di bwoy dem, but mi nah go be the one to say anything because I don’t hear anything official from the police.”

While closure would be welcome, she knows it will never be enough.

“Mi question it enuh, mi a say if police even ketch them, what’s the sense? Because dat nah bring him back and a mi one pickney. Dem ago continue live life, having three meals a day, no bills to pay and mi inna pain every day,” she said.

She often replays the events of that fateful day in her head, when the child they thought safely tucked away in his bed was gunned down.

“I woke up to a call from a cousin all the way in Kemps Hill that AJ was shot. Mi seh, ‘Which part AJ deh fi get shot?’ I called my mother but she was cleaning the church and left him in bed sleeping early the Sunday morning,” said Berry.

She recounted a by-now well-told tale of terror.

A Toyota Probox pulled into an open lot, two men got out and began shooting at the footballers.

“That’s when he got shot because the target was not on the field but was next to my son in a shaded area. Dem just bus the car door and start fire shot sending everyone running for cover. Everybody a run fi dem life, nobody nuh remember seh dem fi look fi him,” the young boy’s mother sobbed.