Jamaican family waiting for coronavirus to pass before burying loved one

Jhonny Martin and his wife Louise from Murray Mountain, St Ann, were plunged into mourning last Monday after losing their daughter Loraine ‘Marvet’ Martin to cancer.
With the imposed restrictions on funeral services due to COVID-19, the family refuses to give her what they describe as a ‘likkle funeral’, so they are willing to wait until things are back to normal.
“Marvet affi get a good funeral, because she would not want a small funeral. That just wasn’t her; knowing her, she want everybody to be there,” Tracey-Ann Robinson, Martin’s mother-in-law, told THE STAR. “We hold it off for a while, so the funeral affi keep at the end of April or in a May, so let it be. It’s just based on how long this virus thing take to pass.”
The Government declared that funerals and other gatherings should not exceed the 10-person limit.
PROPER SEND OFF
“Nothing cannot be done, we cyah do nothing because of the coronavirus. Her children abroad and others will also like to come, so it affi push back, it wouldn’t be fair,” said Robinson. “We a pray to God this may pass over as quick as possible because she need her proper send-off.”
Fortunately, no extra costs will be incurred on the family by the funeral home to hold the body until burial.
Funeral home director Spencer Cummings, of the Cummings Funeral Home, who is currently housing Martin’s body at his parlour, told THE STAR that he has no intentions of charging families for the extended holding period.
“I’m not charging anything extra. Since the restriction, I understand that people will want to hold. We don’t know for how long, but we will be dealing with it just as a regular,” he said.