Mother-of-four Nekesha Holdipp says she almost never cries.But the 34-year-old gets emotional when talking about the void daughters Etana, Eshe and Emoy will have in their lives as they grow older.The girls lost their father Jamaican-Canadian George Lynch a year ago today, when he was gunned down outside a house in Hamilton Parish.Police say it was a case of mistaken identity, but Ms Holdipp, a teacher at Victor Scott Primary, says that doesn’t dull the pain.On the anniversary of his death National Security Minister Wayne Perinchief and Police Commissioner Michael DeSilva will hold a town hall meeting to discuss the on-going violence.The conference comes after 22-year-old Jason Smith, believed to have been an innocent bystander, was shot dead on Sunday morning.Speaking to The Royal Gazette, Ms Holdipp said she is bracing herself for when her girls aged eight months, two and four get older and start asking questions about their dad. “I don’t know how to deal with that,” she said.She was pregnant with Etana when her husband became the fourth shooting victim of 2010.“It’s harder with the baby in that the other girls get to see pictures and they are like ‘look at me with my daddy’ and she has nothing, so it’s crossing that bridge when I come to it.“She has a void that they do not. [With the older girls] their father is gone, but they have pictures on moments they shared with him.”Mr Lynch was also a surrogate father to 11-year-old Enaharo, Ms Holdipp’s son from another relationship.“He helped him with homework, took him to Cup Match and to his cub scout camps,” she said.Forty-year-old Mr Lynch was shot in the chest while visiting a friend who had been the victim of a mob attack being dealt with in the Supreme Court.Ms Holdipp immediately had to grapple with the unexpected loss and said the hard part was that there was “no preparation, no final goodbyes, no settling of any affairs”.In the year since his death, she has struggled with the fact Mr Lynch wasn’t around long enough to really enjoy his children or reach his goals.She said: “We agreed that I would relocate to Bermuda as there was a better support system here, so he lived in Canada for a year when the girls were quite small.”After months of looking he finally landed a job as a cleaner with King Edward VII Memorial Hospital and relocated to Bermuda to be with his family.“He had a good job in Canada and he left to come here and do something that wasn’t on his intellectual level at all.”He was well educated, having both a Bachelor’s degree in human resources and business administration, and dreamt of becoming an accountant.Ms Holdipp considers the recent murder of Mr Smith “a grave injustice to George”.She said enough should have been enough with the Island’s first murder and believes it’s a shame another child had to lose his life needlessly.She said the community was still looking at these cases as isolated incidents, but more needed to be done to stem this tide.“There are things that can be done, but no-one wants to do it. Everyone wants unity but most are not doing what it will take to get there.“I read the papers around these incidents, everyone just wants it to stop. But here is the question how do you stop people who don’t care about life?“What are you willing to do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again? The answers are not warm and fuzzy, and it will take a bold, out-of-the-box approach.”Ms Holdipp believes the first step is for people to come together and forgive each other for past mistakes.Families need to come together, bury old hatchets and support each other. Only then can the village raise healthy children, she said.Churches also need to do “less condemning” and go out into the community and help people in need whether that be a mother who needs free babysitting or a young man who needs a job.Ms Holdipp is currently working to pay for her two older girls’ education and admits she goes above and beyond to compensate for Mr Lynch’s absence.“I feel for the children because as adults we can for the most part pick up the pieces. Even if we have gone through a lot we can bounce back, but [with] children there is no way of telling how it’s going to play itself out in their development.“I worry about that because it’s unpredictable. They may be resilient and put things in context and move forward or they can fall victim to some of the exploits of not having a father.”She said the anniversary of his death would be a quiet day for her family.They are expecting to take part in a candlelight vigil in his memory tonight; while his friends at the Hamilton Parish Workmen’s Club pay tribute to him as well.l The public is encouraged to attend the police’s town hall meeting tonight at 6.30pm at the Devonshire Seventh-day Adventist Church on Roberts Avenue.