Nearly 20 years without mom - Man hasn’t seen parent since age five

Sony Alexander Delva, 24, has not laid eyes on his mother Rolna Dirogene for almost two decades.

He is therefore asking for the help of this media house and the public in locating the woman who he said told him that she would soon return from running an errand but never did.

"I was five when she left but, if I see her face now, I would remember her. We were living in Old Harbour Bay, St Catherine and she left and say she ago look food for me and she never came back. We never live with nuh family members or anything. I just know we use to live in a house that never finished," he said.

Although he was just an infant at the time, Delva said he remembered begging on the street until a good Samaritan stepped in to assist him.

"Mi use to go 'round people and beg but a lady, because she see mi a beg, take mi up and raise mi as her own. She send mi go school and a she mi live with right now from mi a five years old," he said. Delva said his mother is originally from Friendship in St Ann and he was born on September 14, 1998.

"Mi did remember mi name and date of birth and that is what the lady use to get mi through school. Mi big now but mi don't have any ID so mi can get a work, because I don't have any birth certificate. So that is why mi would really want to find my birth mother. Mi don't have TRN or anything," Delva said.

He said that, although he was well cared for, he cried himself to sleep on many occasions and often questioned why his birth mother seemingly abandoned him.

"When she never come back, mi did feel very sad and lonely. All a night time mi use to cry because it was just mi and her and mi madda use to treat mi good. Mi always a wonder what mi do her make she run away left mi and nuh come back. Mi would want to ask har why she abandon mi, why she never give mi to mi fada," Delva said.

THE WEEKEND STAR spoke with the woman who raised Delva and who he referred to as 'grandma'. Identifying herself only as Miss Charmaine, she stated that she did not know Delva's mother but was told by another woman that she had left to get food and never returned.

"She leave him with a lady but the lady did dead. Mi use to see him on the road and on the seaside a play with my children. It didn't come strange to mi because I born (gave birth to) six children and raise three others. I didn't treat him any differently from my own because I love him," she said.

"My husband died now and him [Delva] deh here still with us and him go sea with us, but he needs a fisherman ID to go sea because dem a lock up people who fish without it. I would really want him to get his documents dem," Charmaine added.

Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Rolna Dirogene may contact Sony Delva at 876-374-0039.