I’d just heard the cruellest news and then it got even worse. By Jessica Rodriguez, 31
My little sister Jessinya stared in the mirror, fiddling with her fringe to get it exactly like mine.
‘Are you copying me again?’ I teased.
But really I was chuffed that my baby sister looked up to me.
I was one of 10 siblings and as the eldest, I was a bit of a mother hen to them all.
I’d been nine when Jessinya had been born and she was the tiniest, cutest baby I’d ever seen. I’d loved helping Mum change her nappies and dress her in little outfits.
Now, she was nine and, as well as trying to copy my hair, she loved that our names were so similar.
‘I can’t believe Mum did that!’ she’d chuckle.
Yet as Jessinya hit her teens she really came into her own, blossoming into a bubbly, outgoing and super-glamorous young woman.
Her nails and hair were always on point, her make-up perfect, and she couldn’t get enough of the colour pink.
But for all her glam and girlie ways, she was always looking out for me and our siblings.
If any of us was ever having a hard time, Jessinya would pipe up, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve got you.’
It became her catchphrase.
And we badly needed that when Mum died suddenly following a seizure.
It was devastating but
we all stuck together and supported each other through our grief.
'Don't worry, I've got you'
Then, when Jessinya was 19, she met someone and fell pregnant.
Knowing how protective she was of our younger siblings, I knew she’d be a natural mum.
In time, she
gave birth to her
son Isaac.
‘He’s beautiful,’ I cooed, meeting him for the first time.
As Isaac grew older, Jessinya seemed at her happiest just running around with her little boy at the park, and taping goofy videos on her phone of them laughing and joking.
The following year, she fell pregnant again and was fizzing with excitement about her future.
‘I’ve decided I want to go to beauty school, I want to really go for it,’ she said.
‘That’s literally the perfect job for you,’
I told her, proud
she was going after her dreams.
She gave birth to her daughter Melissa but sadly broke up with the children’s dad soon after.
Then, a few months later, we all got together for a balloon release to mark the fifth anniversary of Mum’s passing and Jessinya introduced me to her new partner.
‘This is Andrew,’ she said, beaming.
‘Hi,’ he nodded towards me.
He seemed quiet and shy, so we didn’t say much after that. But I watched on as he happily helped my sister with the kids and got stuck in.
Over the next months, she posted cosy updates on social media with photos of her and Andrew, and I was happy that she seemed so content.
I knew Mum would have been proud of the woman Jessinya had become.
Then one day, I was getting ready to go to a church event when our brother’s number flashed up on my phone.
When I answered he said, ‘You need to go to Jessinya’s.’
At first, I didn’t realise how serious it was, and when I said I was getting ready for an event, he yelled, ‘You need to come now, it’s an emergency!’
Racing round there, I found my brother outside with little Isaac, now two, beside him and eight-month-old Melissa in his arms.
There was police tape all around the house, cordoning it off.
‘Jessinya’s been shot,’ my brother said, distraught. ‘Take the kids to yours.’
Bewildered, and on automatic pilot, I got the children in the car and drove home thinking over and over, She’s going to be OK.
'You need to come now!'
Jessinya and I had different dads, so I arranged for him and my stepmum to come and take care of my niece and nephew, so I could rush back to her place to find out what was going on.
Only when I arrived, the police held us back behind the tape, insisting they would update us as soon as they had more information.
Suddenly, a news app on my phone pinged, and when I saw the headline on the screen my legs buckled. It read, Mum shot dead at 22.
The picture showed Jessinya’s house.
My beautiful, loving sister was dead.
The following hours passed in a blur. My phone beeped with calls and messages as we raced to the hospital only to be told Jessinya’s body had already been taken away to the coroner for a postmortem examination.
I kept thinking, Who would hurt her? Who would shoot my little sister?
Then, that news app pinged once again.
This time the headline read, 22-year-old mum was shot by two-year-old son.
I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
How could my tiny nephew Isaac be responsible for shooting his mummy? He was just a toddler!
But as the hours unfolded the news reports came thick and fast.
The police held a press conference saying Andrew and Jessinya had been on their bed relaxing before preparing to go out for the evening.
But Andrew had ‘negligently left a loaded 9mm handgun’ in their bedroom and detectives believed little Isaac had got hold of it and while handling it had accidentally pulled the trigger.
A single bullet had struck Jessinya in her upper body.
Andrew, along with others living in their building, had tried to resuscitate her until paramedics took over and rushed her to hospital. But sadly, it had been too late to save her.
Detectives called it a ‘very tragic and very much preventable and avoidable incident’.
They had charged Andrew Sanchez, 18, who had no criminal history, with child endangerment and criminal storage of a firearm, before releasing him on bail.
I finally got to say goodbye to my little sister just before she was laid to rest.
Her make-up was done perfectly. My cousin had even remembered to put Jessinya’s favourite extra-long false eyelashes on her. She looked so beautiful.
In the casket, I placed a photo of Jessinya, Isaac and Melissa all smiling together, along with a little cross.
We made the decision as a family that her children were too young to come to the funeral. But it was a beautiful send-off with many of the mourners dressed in pink as a tribute.
It was only when I scrolled through Jessinya’s phone days later that I found out she’d been due to enrol at beauty school just one week after she’d died.
Just four months on from Jessinya’s death, we are all still reeling.
My little sister was so anti-guns and would never have wanted one in the house.
What my head still can’t accept is that my little nephew was responsible for her passing.
Even the thought of him having to grow up and live with that is unbearable.
Isaac and Melissa live with their daddy, but they come and stay with me at the weekend.
Just the other day Isaac looked at a picture of Jessinya and whispered, ‘Mummy.’
After that he went quiet.
I didn’t say his mummy was in heaven – he’s only two and a half years old, how can he comprehend?
Sometimes, I rewatch a video
on my sister’s phone of her reading to Isaac while cradling Melissa on her tummy, and it hurts so much that her little ones will never get her back.
However, I tell them all the time just how much their mummy loved them.
And nothing – absolutely nothing – will ever change that fact.
● Isaac and Melissa’s names have been changed.