By ANDREA DOWNER, Staff ReporterTHREE WEEKS AGO, 40-year-old Delphrene Jackson was scouring the morgues, police stations, hospitals, and literally the highways and byways in search of her missing son, or at the very least, his body.
THE STAR met Delphrene at the scene of a murder, trying to determine in the midst of curious onlookers, strong police presence and bawling relatives if a body that was found in bushes close to the Ferry Highway was that of her son.
The mother's horror began when she learnt that her son, 20-year-old Wellesley Anthony Forbes-Ferguson (Franze), who had been living with an aunt in Braeton, St. Catherine, for a short time, could not be found.
Delphrene was consumed with worry because even though her son is 20 years old, his communications skills are like that of a toddler's. The only words he can utter are 'yes' and 'no' and sometimes he could do no more than shake or nod his head.
"Every day and night I prayed that God would let his angels carry him home on their wings," Delphrene, who is a devout christian told THE STAR, her voice trembling.
It seems that her prayers were finally answered, because a little over a week after Franze disappeared, he magically reappeared, unable to offer any explanation regarding where he had been because of his impaired speech.
Based on accounts of an eyewitness who lives in the same yard as Delphrene, a car took Franze home and not angels. The eyewitness, however, could not say what the make or colour of the car was, nor did she see who drove the vehicle. His mother, however, feels that it is angels that did the job.
Returned by car
"A tenant who was sitting on the verandah said she saw a car drive up and he came out after which the car drove off," the obviously overjoyed mother told THE STAR.
She said she had just finished praying and was resting in her room when her mother knocked on her bedroom door and told her that her son was home Eight days of darkness faded away when she saw her son. She said he was barefooted and wore the same clothes he was wearing the day he disappeared. His feet were dirty and covered with blisters. When she tried to hug him he pulled away and indicated that he was smelly by covering his nose and making a face. She brushed his protest aside and hugged him hard. "Mi neva business if him smell bad or not, I was just glad to see him," she said with much emotion.
Delphrene said she took Franze to the doctor two days later. The doctor, she said, found nothing physically wrong with him other than the blisters.
Delphrene linked her son's inability to talk to the disappearance of his father from their life 14 years ago. She said Franze stopped talking at age six when his father migrated to England.
"He used to say more words like mommy, daddy, and would say when he needed water, and would also ask for food when he was hungry but he stopped talking entirely when his father left," she explained.
She said visits to a speech therapist at the University Hospital of the West Indies, to various ear, nose and throat specialists as well as four years at the School of Hope, did little to improve his situation.
She said despite his inability to communicate his feelings verbally, he has continuously pined for his father. She said whenever he wanted to speak to his father he would pick up the telephone and when she asked if he wanted to talk to his father he would nod and she would dial his number. The one-sided conversations that have ensued over the years are rays of light in her son's life as she said he is obviously overjoyed when he is listening to him on the telephone.
When words fail
She said sometimes he would be so overwhelmed that his very few words would fail him and he would resort to nodding in response to his father and she would have to remind him to answer yes or no as his father could not hear his nods over the telephone.
In fact, Delphrene said it is his father who might have been indirectly responsible for her son's mysterious disappearance for eight of the longest days of her life.
She said Franze saw his father for the first time in 14 years in January. She said she was told that her son recognised his father on sight without being told by any one that he was his father. She said Franze's father told her that when he saw him, Franze dropped a biscuit and drink he was drinking and started jumping up and down with glee.
She said her son's father returned to England two weeks before Franze disappeared and they surmised that the youth might have been trying to find his father when he wandered off.
Delphrene said, however, that she does not blame Franze's father for his inability to speak as he had left to make a better life for both of them. Two weeks after his return, Delphrene is still celebrating the return of her son. "I knew he would come back to me," Delphrene said of her son. "I did not resign myself to bury him. I just kept crying to the Lord to keep him safe while he was out there," she concluded wistfully.
