Miss Vin and her grandson, Stephen
ADMIRABLE IS the relationship Stephen Dixon and his 85-year-old grandmother share, a bond that is made known on all his social-media pages.
Every week, his cyber friends wait in anticipation for him to post stories about her and for pictures of his tantalising Sunday dinner, dished out in two healthy servings: his and his beloved’s, Lurline Harriot, affectionately called ‘Miss Vin’.
And though many of his friends are oblivious to the back story for such a connection, they shower each post with adoration anyway.
Dixon told Family & Religion that he was taken to live with his paternal grandmother in St Thomas when he was a baby, as his mother, who was financially challenged at the time, was considering putting him up for adoption.
But his grandmother wouldn’t have it that way.
“She treats me like a son. Sometimes I even wonder if she loves me more than her own children. I came to live with her from I was a baby and she has cared for me since then, so I’ve decided to stick with her no matter what opportunity I get or the consequences that may come because she used to tell me that bad blessings will follow me, so I have to be careful of the things I do in life,” he laughed, adding that he has pledged to always be there for her.
Dixon revealed that it has always been the two of them.
According to him, “A she help send me go school, she wash fi me and cook fi me until me can do them myself. She teach me how fi stay out of trouble and bad company.
“She can’t walk so well, so she has to use a walking stick to get around, and if me wash and leave me clothes to run go do something to come back, all if me tell her not to pin them out, she still do it.
“Now me take care of her, provide food, pay the bills, make sure she nuh in need of anything, stay by her side when I can and make sure she’s okay.”
And of the famous Sunday dinners, Dixon said when he was working in the parish, he used to rush home every evening to cook Miss Vin’s dinner even though she could help herself, and had children around who could also offer assistance.
WEEKEND VISITS
And now that he lives elsewhere because of work, he still dedicates his weekends to visiting her. “One Sunday I was cooking and had to leave and let her son finish up for me. When I came back she told me that she never eat the food because a neva me cook it, so she only take one spoon of the rice. “It’s kind of hard for me to leave from her side because I rather to know for myself that she’s okay rather than wonder,” he shared. Dixon, an aspiring secular artiste under the name ‘White Nyke’, though admitting that he doesn’t go to church, spoke of the high regard he has for Miss Vin, whom he describes as a woman of God.
“The songs I do are too ‘out of order’ for her, so I don’t play or sing them around her. I didn’t even bore (pierce) me ears till last year, when I was moving (out) and know she nawgo see it,” he laughed, noting that though he’s 30 years old, he still does not do certain things in her presence.
He added, “And though I don’t go to church, I know how to pray because she taught me how to, just by listening to her pray for me in her room every night.”
‘A she help send me go school, she wash fi me and cook fi me until me can do them myself. She teach me how fi stay out of trouble and bad company.’