Fay­ola K J Fras­er

A de­vot­ed wife, lov­ing moth­er, leader of her church and com­mu­ni­ty, and ded­i­cat­ed teacher, Tere­sa Cyrus all but hides her su­per­hero’s cape un­der the guise of be­ing a reg­u­lar, every­day, or­di­nary woman. Un­der her in­tro­vert­ed, unas­sum­ing man­ner, her ex­tra­or­di­nary abil­i­ties shine bright­ly, as she takes on bal­anc­ing the de­mands of a ca­reer, moth­er­hood, and an en­tire church. Grow­ing up in Chase Vil­lage in cen­tral Trinidad, she re­mained there for all of her years, deeply root­ed in the com­mu­ni­ty through­out the var­i­ous phas­es of her life, build­ing and nav­i­gat­ing her own sto­ry. 

 Cyrus’ heart ini­tial­ly found its pur­pose in the class­room. As a teacher for over 35 years, she stepped in­to the vo­ca­tion of teach­ing, ded­i­cat­ed to shap­ing and mould­ing young minds, in­still­ing val­ues, and build­ing char­ac­ters. She spent many years teach­ing at Mon­trose Gov­ern­ment Pri­ma­ry School in Lange Park, and in­deed, her moth­er­ing ex­tend­ed be­yond her own chil­dren to the count­less chil­dren that passed through her care dur­ing her ca­reer.

“Work­ing as a teacher is not a pro­fes­sion but a vo­ca­tion, as I can’t sim­ply go home and leave the of­fice be­hind. I’m al­ways plan­ning for the chil­dren, al­ways prepar­ing, and al­ways re­view­ing.” Giv­ing her all to her stu­dents was in­grained in her psy­che, but as Cyrus be­gan her fam­i­ly, she was forced to find a bal­ance be­tween her own chil­dren and her school­child­ren, al­ways ap­ply­ing the same en­er­gy and mo­ti­va­tion to the school, be­liev­ing her job in those for­ma­tive years of chil­dren’s lives was cru­cial.  

Af­ter get­ting mar­ried, she had three sons, the first of whom is now 32, the sec­ond 27, and the last 24. “I was so ex­cit­ed to be a moth­er,” she re­mem­bers, ex­plain­ing the way that her heart swelled with love for her new­ly born first son. “But no­body pre­pares you for just how de­mand­ing it will be,” she says.

Five years lat­er, when her sec­ond son joined the fam­i­ly, her days be­came even more hec­tic, but she re­mained firm­ly an­chored by her hus­band and her faith, know­ing that she had been giv­en the pre­cious gift of moth­er­hood to healthy, hap­py chil­dren. This nur­tur­ing, moth­er­ly role, how­ev­er, would not be lim­it­ed to her kin­folk and her school­child­ren, as she took up the role of a leader in her church as the pas­tor’s wife. 

Cyrus and her hus­band found­ed and led the Right­eous­ness, Peace and Joy Fel­low­ship Church, which is now 30 years old.

“Run­ning a church while be­ing a moth­er and full-time teacher was not an easy task. I was in­volved in all the op­er­a­tions of the church, from prepar­ing for the ser­vices, man­ag­ing the var­i­ous min­istries, and co­or­di­nat­ing events, to clean­ing up and lock­ing up the church.

“I al­so had to take my chil­dren to school, take them to foot­ball, and do their home­work with them. And pre­pare lessons for my chil­dren in school. But my hus­band and I worked as a team, and by the grace of God, I man­aged to do it all.”

She has tak­en up a coun­selling role for young women and is the leader of the church’s women’s group, fo­cus­ing her at­ten­tion on help­ing young women nav­i­gate through prob­lems with faith as their guide.

“I men­tor them through dis­cus­sion, coun­selling, and teach­ing,” she says. “I de­pend on my own life’s ex­pe­ri­ences, along with my be­lief in God.”

As a moth­er fig­ure to these young women, in her opin­ion, there is no “per­fect moth­er”, but she views “moth­er­hood as a call­ing and a gift,” one which she has been lucky to har­ness in all her var­i­ous roles. She is al­so a teacher in the church, as she leads Sun­day school and helps lead, plan, and co­or­di­nate events. 

From ear­ly on, Cyrus did not seek to em­body the ide­al im­age of what a moth­er was ex­pect­ed to be like, but in­stead dis­cov­ered the way lead­ing young peo­ple in love thrived even in the face of im­per­fec­tion.

As a teacher, she un­der­stood the psy­chol­o­gy of re­lat­ing to chil­dren and felt that be­ing a teacher unique­ly equipped her with skills to tru­ly un­der­stand and re­late to young peo­ple. Her hus­band was al­so a teacher, and it was this shared pas­sion for serv­ing chil­dren and their love for God that bound them to­geth­er.

Through­out their lives, they shared the load of car­ing for their boys, but she ul­ti­mate­ly took up the man­tle to rig­or­ous­ly pre­pare the chil­dren for SEA, en­sur­ing that they all passed for their top choic­es. Her sons, now adults, are thriv­ing in their var­i­ous ca­reers–one is a da­ta an­a­lyst, one is a con­tent cre­ator, and one is study­ing ac­count­ing. 

 As the years un­fold­ed, she found her­self in a new chap­ter of moth­er­hood where her sons had blos­somed in­to adults, and she had to re­frame her par­ent­ing style, dis­card­ing the parental pedestal. Her sons were no longer re­cip­i­ents of com­mands; they were di­a­logue part­ners.

To­geth­er, moth­er and sons dis­sect­ed life’s com­plex­i­ties, shared per­spec­tives, and nav­i­gat­ed de­ci­sions to­geth­er. The wis­dom now flows both ways, en­rich­ing their re­la­tion­ship, and they al­so work very close­ly along­side Cyrus and her hus­band in the church, es­pe­cial­ly with mu­sic min­istry. 

 Now that her chil­dren are adults, and she has re­tired from teach­ing, Cyrus has time to delve in­to some ret­ro­spec­tion and ac­knowl­edges that be­ing a moth­er at home, in school, and in the com­mu­ni­ty has been a great ho­n­our.

She said that peo­ple al­ways hear bad news about pas­tors’ chil­dren get­ting in­volved in wrong­do­ing, but she was de­ter­mined to en­sure her boys were not raised that way. Hav­ing her out­let for en­joy­ment and self-care, such as gar­den­ing and phys­i­cal ex­er­cise, are ways she has kept sane over the years, as the de­mands of com­pro­mise and sac­ri­fice have con­tin­ued to arise. She still re­mem­bers bring­ing home each of her “ba­bies” from the hos­pi­tal for the first time, and wouldn’t change a mo­ment of it.

 “My hus­band and I have worked hard to make sure our home is a peace­ful place. Our chil­dren are not re­bel­lious be­cause we have al­ways pro­mot­ed har­mo­ny, peace­ful dis­cus­sions, and un­der­stand­ing. We aren’t ar­gu­men­ta­tive, not that we don’t have dis­agree­ments—but we dis­cuss them and come to a res­o­lu­tion. Maybe that’s why my sons aren’t ready to leave home!”

She added, “My hus­band and I com­mu­ni­cate, talk, and pray about things. We put God first, and when it comes to our chil­dren, I make sure to be here with them and mon­i­tor them. My ad­vice to women in mar­riages rais­ing chil­dren is to work on the com­mu­ni­ca­tion be­tween you and your hus­band and make sure God is at the cen­tre of your fam­i­ly.”

Cyrus and her fam­i­ly don’t on­ly fo­cus on their home and church, but their com­mu­ni­ty too. “I help by en­sur­ing the com­mu­ni­ty is clean; some­times Cepep doesn’t come by us, and I my­self do road clean­ing and main­tain our en­vi­ron­ment. We want to keep the at­mos­phere good around here for every­one’s ben­e­fit.”

On this Moth­er’s Day, we seek to cel­e­brate re­al, every­day women, who have, through their de­vo­tion to ser­vice, done in­cred­i­ble things. Tere­sa Cyrus, the unas­sum­ing teacher from Chase Vil­lage, has left and con­tin­ues to leave an in­deli­ble mark—a lega­cy of love, ded­i­ca­tion, and un­wa­ver­ing ser­vice. Her life is a tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of vo­ca­tion, the joys of moth­er­hood, and the un­shake­able faith that has un­der­pinned every sea­son of her life.