Joyce Sarkodie, after eagerly awaiting her husband’s nightly call, never heard the ringing phone when he dialed their home in Ghana for the last time.
It took two days for her to discover why he never called back: Devoted family man Gabriel Sarkodie, 48, was among the last victims identified in a Bronx blaze Thursday that killed a dozen people.
“When I realized what happened, I couldn’t do anything,” the weeping wife told the Daily News from her home in Kumasi, Ghana. “I didn’t imagine I could lose my husband so quick.
Joyce Sarkodie (right) with her husband Gabriel Sarkodie, 48, who was among the last victims identified in a Bronx blaze Thursday that killed a dozen people.
“I don’t know why this happened to him. He was such a great person.”
Joyce Sarkodie said her husband worked as an Uber driver in the Bronx, sending money back home twice a month to support their two kids, a 7-year-old boy and a 5-year-old girl.
Sarkodie was planning to move his family to the Bronx.
He was saving money, too — Sarkodie was planning to move his family to the Bronx and broke the news during a visit to his homeland last April.
“He came to see us, and we hugged like a real family,” his brokenhearted wife recalled Monday evening. “He said he was preparing for us to join him. Honestly, I’m shivering talking about it.”
People gather at a makeshift memorial for the victims of the apartment fire at 2363 Prospect Ave. in the Bronx on Saturday. (THEODORE PARISIENNE/FOR NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
Sarkodie was meticulous about calling home twice a day — once in the morning and once at night. He was particularly concerned before his death because their daughter was ill.
Joyce said she missed one call from her husband of eight years, and then waited for another that would never come. She dialed his number repeatedly, only to hear it ring endlessly.
“Now I wish I could have been able to talk to him before ... talk to him before ...” she said before wailing in grief.
The distraught widow said the family was hoping to bring Sarkodie home for burial, although his return would bring her no peace or closure.
Fernando Batiz holds up a photo of his sister, Maria (in white top), who died in the Bronx fire that killed 12 people Thursday.(JEFFERSON SIEGEL/NEW YORK DAILY NEWS)
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” said Joyce Sarkodie. “I don’t know how to go about life.”
The brother of another victim of the Thursday evening blaze said he forgives the young mom whose 3-year-old son ignited the blaze while playing with a gas stove in their first-floor apartment.
And Fernando Batiz says his dead sister Maria, 56, would have forgiven the woman, too.
“My sister believed in the Lord,” he said. “She has three daughters. All I can do is keep her memory. Keep her in my heart. There’s nothing else I can do.”
Maria Batiz and her granddaughter Amora Serenity Vidal both died in the fire. (FACEBOOK)
Maria died huddled inside the bathtub with her granddaughter Amora, just 7 months old, in her third-floor studio apartment in the Belmont building.
Other relatives blamed the mom and charged she did little to alert residents in the other 24 apartments about the blaze. Batiz took a different approach toward the mother, who escaped the inferno with the little boy and a second small child.
“I forgive her,” he said. “Thank God she made it out alive, too, and her kid. It’s not the kid’s fault.”
- ny news
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