An­na-Lisa Paul

Two sis­ters who died from COVID-19 re­cent­ly were yes­ter­day laid to rest.

The fu­ner­al for Karen and Geor­gette Rawl­ins was viewed by over 700 peo­ple on­line.

Friends, fam­i­ly and co-work­ers were told by the of­fi­ci­at­ing min­is­ter to con­tin­ue the lega­cy they be­gan by treat­ing every­one with love and good­ness.

As he sought to of­fer words of com­fort and so­lace, the pas­tor urged the fam­i­ly to ac­cept the word of the Lord, whom he claimed had told him, “Karen and Geor­gette have left the earth but their love will nev­er leave the Earth.”

He said he had drawn great com­fort from that, quot­ing from the Bible that while the girls were ab­sent from the body, they were now present with God.

Karen, 42, who worked at the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice (TTPS) Cred­it Union and her sis­ter Geor­gette, 44, who worked at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies’ St Au­gus­tine cam­pus, died one week apart af­ter con­tract­ing the COVID-19 virus.

The duo was re­mem­bered as sib­lings who loved each oth­er fierce­ly.

“Peo­ple may not re­mem­ber them by all their ed­u­ca­tion and all the cer­tifi­cates and how love­ly they look, but they would re­mem­ber them by one great thing…the love they shared with one an­oth­er. The love that they touched peo­ple’s lives with.”

This love was ev­i­denced by the num­ber of peo­ple who tuned in to the vir­tu­al ser­vice, many of whom post­ed mes­sages of sup­port and love to the Rawl­ins fam­i­ly.

The on­line com­ments al­so mir­rored shock by a few peo­ple who on­ly came to know about the two af­ter they had died.

Georgette Rawlins

The pas­tor called on every­one present to live their lives with love, which he said could break down all bar­ri­ers and con­quer many of the prob­lems be­ing faced in the world to­day.

He said, “To cher­ish Karen and Geor­gette’s mem­o­ry, you must now be­gin to walk in that di­men­sion of love that they have walked in­to and touched lives in the earth, not just by giv­ing some­thing, some kind­ness here and some kind­ness there.”

Com­ment­ing on how quick­ly things fade away from peo­ple’s mem­o­ries, the pas­tor said the love of the two sis­ters, which came from the Holy Spir­it, could nev­er be erased from the hearts and minds of those left be­hind.

“A be­liev­er doesn’t die, they just make a tran­si­tion,” he said, as he as­sured that Karen and Geor­gette would con­tin­ue their work to spread love in the af­ter­life.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy was el­der church mem­ber Sis­ter Joan, who de­scribed both girls as pre­cious lives that would for­ev­er be re­mem­bered.

Geor­gette and Karen, who were in­sep­a­ra­ble in life and car­ried that through to death, leave to mourn their moth­er Lynette and sis­ters Krys­tal and Gabrielle.

Geor­gette at­tend­ed St Cather­ine’s Girls’ Pri­ma­ry School and then St Fran­cois Girls’ Col­lege and was said to be a con­sum­mate pro­fes­sion­al but a mas­ter pro­cras­ti­na­tor, who en­joyed read­ing and craft­ing, with a friend­ly na­ture and in­fec­tious smile.

Fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of her old­er sis­ter, hav­ing at­tend­ed the same pri­ma­ry and sec­ondary schools, Karen was re­mem­bered as an avid tech­nol­o­gy ex­plor­er al­ways in­ter­est­ed in build­ing and work­ing a de­vice, but who tem­pered this with read­ing and cro­chet­ing. She was said to have been even-tem­pered and rarely raised her voice even when dis­pleased.

Farewell sen­ti­ments were al­so ex­pressed on be­half of rel­a­tives who are abroad.