Dr Glenville Ash­by

It was an emo­tion­al­ly up­lift­ing evening-one that end­ed with a prayer of grat­i­tude to God. Ear­li­er, homage was be­stowed on three re­mark­able Caribbean in­di­vid­u­als-Dr Lamuel Stanis­laus, 91; Elmi­na Par­ris, 100; and Pearline Thomas-Sandy, 83. They had giv­en decades of ser­vice to fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty-they them­selves sus­tained by that in­ef­fa­ble en­er­gy. It was an re­gal evening-sharply Afro­cen­tric, with rolling drums and nar­ra­tion. "Yes­ter­day's Chil­dren," a con­cept that ger­mi­nat­ed five years ago-the brain child of renowned Brook­lyn pub­li­cist and CEO of Mau­by Me­dia Ser­vices, Glen­da Cado­gan, fi­nal­ly bore fruit on an over­cast Sat­ur­day evening in Brook­lyn.

Cado­gan viewed the un­der­tak­ing as a "spir­i­tu­al man­date," one that on­ly she could fa­cil­i­tate. "I spoke to many peo­ple, even or­gan­i­sa­tions about do­ing some­thing for our el­ders. They all thought it was a great idea, but noth­ing re­al­ly ma­te­ri­alised," she said. But like the Gre­cian po­et in­spired by his dae­mon, Cado­gan ex­pe­ri­enced that epiphan­i­cal mo­ment. "All of a sud­den the in­spi­ra­tion came. This was my work...my re­spon­si­bil­i­ty." Sub­lim­i­nal mes­sages came-one fol­low­ing an­oth­er-the path cleared, and the vi­sion re­alised. "I knew ex­act­ly what I had to do, who I had to call...and as you can see, this was a col­lab­o­ra­tive ef­fort." Ac­cord­ing to Cado­gan, there ex­ist­ed an ide­al-a no­ble in­tent that tran­scend­ed the time and space of the event. "'Yes­ter­day Chil­dren,' is about ho­n­our, grat­i­tude, love, obe­di­ence, and uni­ty," she re­cit­ed. These were the words that elicit­ed a cli­mate of re­flec­tive qui­etude that evening.

"The pro­gramme was al­so about ho­n­our­ing the lega­cy of my moth­er, and the moth­ers and fa­thers of all those who were present and ab­sent. Many of our moth­ers were home mak­ers, but they were re­al­ly more than that. They were nurs­es, ac­coun­tants.. ..You name it." Cado­gan al­so ex­plored the so­ci­o­log­i­cal im­pli­ca­tions of hold­ing such an event, iden­ti­fy­ing what she called "the prin­ci­pal causative fac­tor for our frac­tured com­mu­ni­ties." She was pas­sion­ate and in­ci­sive: "There is a pre­pon­der­ance of youth pro­grammes. All that is good, but if the foun­da­tion is wob­bly we have a prob­lem." She ar­tic­u­lat­ed the "sanc­ti­ty of the el­ders," frus­trat­ed that "our youths are obliv­i­ous of the sa­cred­ness of el­ders. She was ap­palled that young peo­ple would ut­ter com­ments such as, "I don't want to live that old."

She at­trib­uted "our suf­fer­ing" to this non­cha­lance-this mat­ter-of-fact ap­proach to an es­sen­tial spir­i­tu­al pre­cept. "Ho­n­our thy fa­ther and thy moth­er so that your days be long," she in­toned. "Ho­n­our­ing our el­ders is a form of heal­ing for our young peo­ple. It is re­al­ly heal­ing from the roots. Our youth pro­grammes will con­tin­ue to have very mar­gin­al re­sults if we ig­nore our el­ders." As plan­ning for the event took form, Cado­gan need­ed to con­jure gift ideas that best re­flect­ed the self­less ser­vice and sac­ri­fice of Dr Stanis­laus, and Mmes Par­ris and Thomas-Sandy. What could have proven painstak­ing for the unin­spired, be­came al­most rou­tine. The gift was imag­i­na­tive as it was en­dur­ing­ly in­spir­ing. The in­ter­na­tion­al Star Reg­istry was con­tact­ed, and three stars were named af­ter the hon­orees-copy­right­ed with pre­cise stel­lar co­or­di­nates, al­low­ing any­one to lo­cate them via a tele­scope. Con­grat­u­la­to­ry let­ters and cer­tifi­cates were al­so is­sued.

Of her de­ci­sion, Cado­gan stat­ed, "It was a time­less ges­ture." And in an ef­fort to lend some tan­gi­bil­i­ty to the con­cept of "el­der ven­er­a­tion," the event al­so raised mon­ey for He­len Charles Se­nior Cit­i­zens Home in La Brea, Trinidad; Top Hill Se­nior Home in Cari­cou, and Un­cle Ed­dies Nurs­ing Home in George­town, Guyana. "I just felt that we had to go be­yond the sub­lim­i­nal ef­fect and do some­thing very prac­ti­cal. This will on­ly add to the per­pe­tu­ity of the mes­sage," she end­ed.

Dr Glenville Ash­by

New York cor­re­spon­dent

The Guardian Me­dia Group