“THEY’VE (gunmen) robbed me of my joy.”
This is how Debra Babb Gilkes, whose husband Edwin Daniel Gilkes, 47, was among the 13 executed by heavily armed gunmen during their reign of terror in the mining town of Bartica Sunday evening, describes her loss.

Describing him as a wonderful, jovial, friendly person, and a friend to everyone in Bartica, his wife recalled the last moments with her husband with whom she shared wonderful times after their marriage on July 22, 2002.

Mrs. Gilkes said she left her husband and daughter at a family home at Fifth Avenue, Bartica and went to a Bible Club.

Whenever she did this, the husband would, before proceeding to the Banks DIH outlet where he worked as a security guard, tidy the daughter and take her over to her mother.

Sunday afternoon he asked what she would cook when she got to their newly acquired home at Four-Miles, Potaro, and after some thought, it was he who decided on a meal of calaloo, she told the Chronicle.

His next task was to ensure they were safely on a bus plying the Four-Mile route, and almost immediately one rolled up.

Edo, as she said she called him, lifted Jade, their three-year-old daughter, onto the bus, and the wife remembered turning and asking, “You ent heisting me too”, to which he laughed.

“Later, take care, I’ll call you later,” were the parting words as the bus drove off.

But the telephone call which had become like a ritual, whenever he arrived at work and had settled down never came Sunday night.

Not long after 4.00 o’clock she heard the sound of a vehicle stopping outside the house, then a familiar whistle, that of her sister Stella. Stella ran up the stairway, telling her to get dressed and that her husband had been shot in the side, but it was not fatal.

As they left the house, she observed a woman next door shaking her head from side to side, but this caused her no alarm.

On arrival at the Bartica Hospital, Mrs. Gilkes said there were several persons and some began offering her deepest sympathy. She found this strange.

In the ward, she enquired of a nurse where she could find her husband and went to his bedside. She took his hand and found it to be cold. Then she realised that he was not breathing.

It was then that the stark reality of why she was offered condolences downstairs hit home.

“Why didn’t you all tell me he is dead?” she asked, then burst into hysterical screams.

Mrs. Gilkes says she regrets that her husband will not be around to enjoy the new home they recently built and moved into on November 31, last.

Edwin Gilkes also leaves to mourn a foster son Rayon Garrett , 18, sisters, brothers, in-laws, other relatives and numerous friends. He will be buried at the Bartica Cemetery, Pharaoh Hill, next Wednesday, following a service at the Bartica Baptist Church.