MAMA CHRISTIE WAS SEAVIEW GARDENS’ MOTHER
Constance ‘ Mama Christie’ Christie, has been described as a champion and the soul of Seaview Gardens, the community in which she spent all of her life serving its residents.
“Seaview has lost a mother, someone who is very caring,” said a tearful Andrea Watson, who said she was among the many who enjoyed Mama Christie’s famous cooking.
“Yuh ever have a grandmother weh cook and yuh just say no cooking no better like grandma cooking? Yeah, it was that. All the kids grew up to love her. I cannot pick a favourite meal because every time when she cooked, we were satisfied,” she added. According to Watson, Mama Christie would feed the entire community from one big pot.
BEST LADY MI EVER MEET
“She alone would stand up and cook. Yuh know dat at a certain time pon a Sunday evening Mama Christie dinner ready,” said Watson. Disco, a labourer, said Mama Christie was “di best lady mi ever meet”. “Yuh have good people, enuh, but nobody no beat Mama. She live har best life, she was the mother of not only a superstar but a mother of the entire Seaview Gardens community,” he said. Mama Christie passed away on Tuesday. She mothered seven children, including the two-time Grammy winner Shabba Ranks.
“She is a strong woman who has done her uttermost blessed best not only to I, Shabba Ranks, but to a whole lot of other people’s children and that is why everybody calls her Mama. I know how to pray so that the Lord’s continuous mercies shall forever be the strength of my foundation,” Shabba said via WhatsApp.
Word of the 81-year-old’s death spread like wildfire on social media and prompted several persons, including dancehall star Dexta Daps, to send condolences.
Sitting a few metres away from Mama Christie’s former home, was a group of broken-hearted music aspirants, led by Federick Ellis, lead producer at Deadly Beats Recording Studio, located in Phase One. He said the community had lost a stalwart.
“She is a quiet giant. Di yute dem looked up to her, she was the soul of the entire Seaview. So many times we are here vibing at the studio and we decide say wi ago ‘run a boat’, so wi just go check Mama Christie. All of us were her children. She knew how to bring joy to everyone,” he said, recalling that in the 90s, Mama Christie would take several of them to school in the mornings as transportation was difficult to get.
Constance Christie, known to many as Mama Christie, had been ailing for the past three years, and her son, international dancehall artiste Shabba Ranks, made sure that he spoke to her every day.
“Right now, I don’t know if him head good or nuh good, because him and she talk every day. We all love her, but him love her more,” Shabba’s brother, Leopold ‘Chunnie’ Hartley, told THE
STAR, two days after their mother’s passing.
Mama Christie, 81, passed away on Tuesday, after being admitted to hospital last Friday. “When I put her in the car on Friday, I never know that was the last time I would see her alive, because she has been going to the hospital and she always come back out. But the kidney was one of the main thing. She was on dialysis and from last year February, two times per week, I have to carry her to do the treatment. But she was comfortable because Shabba and her other kids mek sure that she is well taken care of,” Hartley said of the mother of seven.
A grieving Hartley hailed his late mother as a “tower of strength for all of us and the community that we live in”, and said that since her illness, he had been “up and down with her” and she had become his best friend. He disclosed that he and his siblings are in discussions to pay tribute to her by setting up a foundation in her name.
“She loved to give, that was her way of life, plus she was a church lady who was very active. We are talking about doing something, like a foundation to honour her memory, something that will involve always helping out people,” Hartley explained.
DEEP SADNESS
Mama Christie shot to stardom, along with her ‘Grammy Kid’ son, who carried her in his heart. “Shabba never graced a stage without paying respect to his mother whom he held in the highest esteem,” Entertainment Minister Olivia Grange said in her tribute to Mama Christie. Expressing deep sadness at her passing, Grange, Shabba’s former manager, said, “She was someone I knew very well so to hear of her passing is devastating. Shabba would talk about Mama Christie at every opportunity he got. She was a beautiful soul who supported her son in all his endeavours. She was his biggest cheerleader. In fact, it was Shabba’s public display of love and affection for Mama Christie that led to so many younger artistes singing songs of admiration about their mothers.” Another of Mama Christie’s sons, Lenwall Gordon, said that the family is processing the information as they get ready for a funeral. “It is a great loss, but we have to cope. We are not small any more, we have all passed the worst, but it’s a grief we have to bear,” he said. Hartley said that he “expects to see Shabba soon”.