Nationals from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Guyana, Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica, as well as the United States, were among mourners at a funeral in Brooklyn on Saturday, March 11 for Vincentian native Collin Cox.
Cox died on Feb. 25 at Winter Garden Towers, a hospice facility in Orlando, Fl., his widow Sandra Bain-Cox, told Caribbean Life. He was 79.
Mrs. Bain-Cox, who was born in Trinidad and Tobago to Grenadian parents, said her husband was afflicted with heart disease for 16 of their 17-year marriage.
She told mourners, at Caribe Funeral Home on Utica Avenue and Avenue K in Brooklyn, that Mr. Cox had open heart surgery just a year into their marriage.
Ten years later, she said he had another heart surgery, with an implant, and that doctors had given him two years to live.
“God gave him six years,” said Mrs. Bain-Cox, using a tissue to dry her eyes, as tears flowed down her cheeks. “Again, I was the caregiver.
“The thing about my husband [was that], he never complained. I had to see something is [was] wrong,” she added.
“Seven months ago, the doctors said he wanted to be tube-fed, and I said ‘no’,” Mrs. Bain-Cox continued. “And he survived.
“Between July [last year] and the time he passed away, he had seven [hospital] admissions,” she said before reading 1 Timothy 4:6-8. “Today, I say, ‘my conscience is clear; I have no guilt.’ I stand here, and I say, ‘I have no guilt.’”
Collin Oswald Cox was born on Oct. 8, 1937 to the late John and Muriel Cox, née Dennie, in Troumaca, a village along mainland St. Vincent’s western coast.
Mr. Cox attended the Troumaca Government School before migrating to Trinidad and Tobago at a young age.
He represented “The Land of the Humming Bird” in cycling, and was renowned as a pannist. Later on, he migrated to Brooklyn and worked at Kilroy Metal Products, Inc. until retirement. By Nelson King Caribbean Life News
