Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian was an Arim­i­an to the core, ded­i­cat­ed to that com­mu­ni­ty where her fam­i­ly’s roots ran deep and where her ser­vice ex­tend­ed well be­yond pol­i­tics.

She was pas­sion­ate about her home­town and be­fore she was elect­ed MP for D’Abadie/O’Meara in 2020, a con­stituen­cy that in­cludes sig­nif­i­cant por­tions of Ari­ma, she ex­pressed a de­sire to make the be­long­ing, to­geth­er­ness and sense of com­mu­ni­ty she had al­ways ex­pe­ri­enced there a key as­pect of her po­lit­i­cal rep­re­sen­ta­tion.

The heart­felt trib­utes that have been paid since her trag­ic and un­time­ly pass­ing in a fire that de­stroyed her home ear­ly yes­ter­day, are proof that she achieved that goal.

There have been many spon­ta­neous ex­pres­sions of grief in re­sponse to the news that Mor­ris-Ju­lian and two of her chil­dren per­ished in the fire at their Far­fan Street, Ari­ma home.

Her for­mer stu­dents, burgess­es she rep­re­sent­ed—as coun­cil­lor for Ari­ma Cen­tral and then as may­or—D’Abadie/O’Meara con­stituents, Cab­i­net col­leagues and even po­lit­i­cal ri­vals made up the crowds that gath­ered at the scene of the tragedy.

Many more post­ed emo­tion­al mes­sages and ex­pres­sions of con­do­lence, shar­ing their mem­o­ries of the late MP.

From every­thing that has been shared so far, it is clear that Mor­ris-Ju­lian touched many lives and had been do­ing so even be­fore she en­tered ac­tive pol­i­tics.

Pol­i­tics was in her blood. Her grand­fa­ther, Leroy Mor­ris, was a may­or of Ari­ma and her grand­moth­er and great-un­cle were both coun­cil­lors.

How­ev­er, Mor­ris-Ju­lian did not take a di­rect path in­to pol­i­tics, opt­ing in­stead for a teach­ing ca­reer af­ter grad­u­at­ing from The UWI, St Au­gus­tine. She taught Eng­lish lit­er­a­ture, Eng­lish lan­guage, com­mu­ni­ca­tions and the­atre at Barataria Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive and Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary schools; and worked as a Caribbean Ex­am­i­na­tions Coun­cil ex­am­in­er. She al­so dis­played con­sid­er­able tal­ent as a play­wright, win­ning awards at the Sec­ondary Schools’ Dra­ma Fes­ti­val and earn­ing the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing list­ed by the Crop­per Foun­da­tion among the top ten emerg­ing writ­ers in the Caribbean.

Ac­tive po­lit­i­cal in­volve­ment be­gan in 2013 in the Ari­ma Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion, first as a coun­cil­lor, then as may­or from 2016 un­til 2020, when she suc­cess­ful­ly con­test­ed the D’Abadie/O’Meara seat.

Death brought a pre­ma­ture end to her term as MP and has left the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) short of a can­di­date in a con­stituen­cy where screen­ing had al­ready been com­plet­ed.

But this is not on­ly a loss for the rul­ing PNM.

A fam­i­ly has been robbed of three loved ones in the most gut-wrench­ing of cir­cum­stances.

The depth of the loss suf­fered by her hus­band, Daniel Ju­lian, and their three sur­viv­ing chil­dren, is dif­fi­cult to fath­om.

As in­ves­ti­ga­tors sift through the ru­ins to de­ter­mine the cause of that fa­tal fire and more painful de­tails come to light, this na­tion has be­come unit­ed in grief, ral­ly­ing around the fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty at the cen­tre of this tragedy.

For a mo­ment, po­lit­i­cal ri­val­ries have been set aside. Par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, who sat across the aisle from Mor­ris-Ju­lian gear­ing up for the in­tense elec­tion bat­tle that is just months away, have paused to ho­n­our the mem­o­ry of the Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

The shock and grief of this mo­ment are shared by many.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian is be­ing re­mem­bered for her ser­vice and ded­i­ca­tion, not on­ly to Ari­ma, the com­mu­ni­ty she loved but to all of T&T.

Our deep­est con­do­lences to her fam­i­ly, friends and all the peo­ple whose lives she touched.