Jacqueline Brown’s four young children could be seen running around the shared yard of a small mobile home community on a hill in rural Taylors, laughing and playing with each other, friends and relatives.
Girl, boy, girl, boy. Ages 8, 6, 4, 2.
There was Jamire Halley, 8, who sometimes threw a football with the community’s property manager, Robert Starliper.
There was Robbiana Evans, 6, who loved the color pink and was momma’s helper.
There was Arnez Jamison Jr., 4, her fighter who’d defeated cancer already and battled sickle cell disease.
And there was Ar’mani Jamison, 2, a copycat who adored her older siblings.
All four died from injuries sustained in a single-car crash that happened at 12:28 a.m. on Friday, Dec. 7.
On Monday, Starliper spoke while he stood outside the family’s home. Red and green garland adorned a shaky wooden railing. Snow caked the slippery wooden deck, and a wreath of purple, pink and white flowers hung from the front door, placed there by Starliper.
He said the children adored their mother and were always respectful toward him and other adults he saw interact with them.
Brown said she’d raised them to be respectful and to treat others the way they’d like to be treated. She found consolation that someone had noticed.
“I just miss them so much,” Brown said. “I’m just incomplete now without them. They were my everything.”
Jamire Halley, 8
Brown called Jamire her ‘Little Sidekick.’ He was her rock, helpful, goofy and outgoing.
“He was a special kid,” she said. “He was always a protector.”
He was in third grade at Gateway Elementary School in Travelers Rest and loved learning math and gym class and loved his friends and his teacher, Vicki Godbey.
He loved to play on his phone, tablet and PS4, she said.
“He would do his homework and immediately ask, 'Mom, can I play my game?'”
He was also her encourager. When she was down or worried, he would tell her, “Mommy, it’s going to be okay.”
“His encouragement just pushed me, motivated me to go even harder,” she said.
Robbiana Evans, 6
Robbiana cherished her little sister, 2-year-old Ar’mani, and was her mother’s helper. She had just started to take Ar’mani, who was potty-training, to the bathroom. She would help her with her pull-up and help Ar’mani clean up, Brown said.
“My two oldest helped me a lot with the young kids,” Brown said.
Robbiana loved the color pink, loved kindergarten at Gateway — especially gym class — and “just had an enjoyment of life,” Brown said.
“That was my sassy-pants. She had an outgoing personality. Very funny. She was a great helper. She was very smart.”
Arnez Jamison Jr., 4
Arnez Jr. was right in the middle of the transition from toddler to big kid, she said. He loved preschool at SHARE Head Start but was also her baby who still loved his “binky,” she said.
He was a fighter who had a cancerous lymph node removed when he was a baby and battled sickle cell disease and had been in and out of the hospital his entire short life, Brown said.
Arnez Jr. loved playing with cars and the color yellow.
“I would call him ‘Tough Guy’ or ‘Big Boy.’ He was a fighter. Very strong,” she said.
Ar’mani Jamison, 2
Ar’Mani turned 2 in June and adored her older siblings, especially her big sister.
“She was a copycat. She looked up to her big sister, Robbiana, so much. She just loved her,” Brown said.
Ar’mani would take Robbiana’s tablet but didn’t know how to type, so she would give voice commands to the tablet’s Google’s voice assistant, usually “Baby Shark, do,” Brown said.
“She loved that Baby Shark song and would play it over and over and over nonstop.”
Brown would call her “Miss Ar’mani,” especially when she did something sassy, and when she opened her Christmas present early when Brown was out of the room.
“I’ve got to try to pick up a million pieces and try to put them all together,” Brown said. “I know it’ll never be the same. I lost everything all at once.
“I gotta keep moving forward as if they were still here. I don’t want them to see me down.”
