Michael Power has the pain of a tight knot in his chest after losing his son in a road traffic accident yesterday.
Twenty-seven-year-old Ramon Ryan Arthur Power is Barbados’ latest road fatality after perishing in a collision along Paradise Road, St George around 2:40 a.m.
Michael recalled the last conversation shared with his son, as the two mused about the upgrades he made to the double cab motor van that Ramon gradually built over the years.
“He loved off-road vehicles, and he had that vehicle as a showpiece. Every afternoon before I leave the workshop, I would go and ask him, ‘How you getting through?’, and yesterday afternoon, when we spoke, I said he had a problem with the clutch and so on.
“I said, so you’re coming in early tonight and he said, ‘I got a few more things to do, but I will come in’. I turned and told him, ‘Ramon, I would see you later, try to get in early,’” the father recounted.
Awakened
That night, Ramon would head out for a drive with his friends and his parents retired to bed, only to be awakened to the news of a serious accident.
“My phone rang. I looked at the number and I picked it up, and when I answered the phone, it was one of his best friends. He said, ‘Mr. Power, Ramon just got in a serious accident with the van’. I started to dress myself, me and his mother Claudette got ready to go. When I was going through the door, a mind said to me to call back to his friend.
“A question I didn’t ask him was if he was injured. When I called back I asked where’s Ramon, is he injured?. He said to me, ‘No, he dead.’ When he told me that I had no life apart from my two knees, and when I got out the car, I saw Ramon [was] thrown out the vehicle and onto the road.
“I am broken because I know that Ramon is not coming home again, and that has sent a strong signal to me of recognising what this life is that we have. It is fragile and we have to cherish it,” he said.
Yesterday, the Power family home in Groves Hill, St George filled with friends and relatives who gathered to give support and grieve the passing of an individual they lovingly described as extraordinary and full of life.
Police said that the incident occurred as the double-cab motor van, driven by Ramon, was travelling towards Applewhaites, overtook another vehicle and Ramon appeared to have lost control and was thrown from the vehicle.
Outpouring
Ambulance personnel found no signs of life and a medical doctor pronounced him dead.
The front and rear seat passengers complained of injury and were transported to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
One of four siblings, Ramon was affectionately referred to as “Powa” by friends and acquaintances. He was a lover of vehicles, dogs and an avid cook of vegetarian cuisine.
As news of his passing broke, there was an outpouring of condolences shared throughout social media.
“To talk about Ramon, he was everything of me. He was a bright guy, an intelligent guy, and a guy full of energy. So many people loved him that I was shocked even up to now that he was so loved and well known across the country,” said Michael.
“I love all of my children, but he was a child that he had all of my energy. There’s nothing I could tell him I want done, there was never an answer that he can’t get it do. He was the energy and the love of this family… “Ramon was an extraordinary young man. If you don’t know him you could feel many ways about him but once you get to know him, he had his heart in the right place. He would give away his life for his friends,” the father said.
Through their relationship, Power viewed his son as a close mirror of himself, seeing the same energy he shared as a youth and he often tried to instill those same values he held dear.
At the family home, grieving relatives remarked how Ramon’s presence would be sorely missed. They said that Ramon’s two dogs – whom he cared for and displayed often throughout his social media – have also been seeking him out.
“I’m here, and I’ve left my arms open for God to receive his mother and me and the remainder of the family that we can get through this. Time is a great healer,” Michael said. ( JRN)
