An­na-Lisa Paul

Gideon Hol­lis Valdez was a man who al­ways chose peace over anger and while this had hurt him at times, he has been cred­it­ed with re­main­ing calm in the face of provo­ca­tion.

De­liv­er­ing the ser­mon at Valdez’s fu­ner­al at Bel­groves Fu­ner­al Home in Tacarigua on Wednes­day, Broth­er Derek Good­ing re­mem­bered the fa­ther of one as a well-loved in­di­vid­ual.

Valdez, 40, and his wife Shireen Bai­ley-Valdez, 41, were both killed at their home at Rin­con Road, Las Cuevas, on Ju­ly 29.

They had been shot a to­tal of sev­en times by a sus­pect who was re­port­ed to have been in­volved in a re­la­tion­ship with Bai­ley-Valdez.

Bai­ley-Valdez and her hus­band had been es­tranged for sev­er­al weeks, and had on­ly re­cent­ly rec­on­ciled when they were mur­dered.

Grow­ing an­i­mos­i­ty be­tween the two fam­i­lies led to the cou­ple hav­ing sep­a­rate fu­ner­als – with Valdez be­ing laid to rest yes­ter­day while Bai­ley-Valdez will be laid to rest to­mor­row.

Good­ing ap­pealed to those present and al­so view­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, which was streamed vir­tu­al­ly, to re­mem­ber Valdez as some­one who was “de­ter­mined, peace­ful, re­spect­ful, lov­ing, and sup­port­ive.”

He said while many were yet to come to terms with the cou­ple’s sud­den deaths, which re­al­ly, re­al­ly hurts, he urged every­one to al­ways re­mem­ber that the one thing that was steady about Valdez was his char­ac­ter.

Re­call­ing one of Valdez’s life­guard­ing col­leagues re­fer­ring to him as “just the best,” Good­ing said peo­ple some­times view cer­tain qual­i­ties as a weak­ness but in this case, it was not.

In fact, he shared that Valdez’s moth­er had said he al­ways chose peace from a young age and that he nev­er an­swered back.

Good­ing said de­spite chal­lenges in his fam­i­ly life dur­ing the lat­ter part, Valdez “chose peace.”

He said, “He al­ways sought a way and it hurt him, as he strove to main­tain peace with­out erupt­ing and re­al­ly, it takes strength to re­main calm un­der provo­ca­tion.”

Shar­ing Valdez’s love, com­mit­ment and ded­i­ca­tion to the cou­ple’s 14-year-old daugh­ter, Good­ing told the con­gre­ga­tion that Valdez al­ways sup­port­ed his daugh­ter’s re­la­tion­ship with the church and that he too, had want­ed to strength­en his re­la­tion­ship with God as “he had love for every­one.”

Re­mem­ber­ing Valdez’s beau­ti­ful laugh for which he was known, Good­ing claimed Valdez al­ways pro­vid­ed a pa­tient lis­ten­ing ear, ready to give ad­vice when asked.

To the liv­ing, Good­ing urged them to ac­cept that God un­der­stood their pain and grief.

He said in a world to­day where peo­ple are dy­ing from so many things oth­er than old age, they had to re­main strong and root­ed in the be­lief that Valdez would one day be re­unit­ed with his daugh­ter and fam­i­ly.

Say­ing we are liv­ing in the last days, Good­ing said to­mor­row was not guar­an­teed and called on per­sons to think about how they were liv­ing their lives.

Many of Valdez’s life­guard­ing col­leagues who turned up to pay their re­spects , donned the bright yel­low trade­mark life­guard t-shirt which had been his uni­form for years.

Valdez’s own yel­low life­guard t-shirt was hung over his cof­fin.

Bai­ley-Valdez is ex­pect­ed to be laid to rest on Fri­day fol­low­ing a fu­ner­al at the Port-of-Spain Cre­ma­to­ri­um.