Denyse Plum­mer touched the lives of many.

The for­mer Ca­lyp­so Queen turned gospel artiste, who died on Sun­day at age 69 af­ter her bat­tle with can­cer, is now be­ing re­mem­bered as a sis­ter, who went above and be­yond to help peo­ple.

Her decades-long ca­reer touched the lives of not just a coun­try but the en­tire Caribbean re­gion.

But it is not just her ex­treme cos­tum­ing, pow­er­ful lyrics and stage pres­ence that in­flu­enced artistes and drew fans in, but her love and kind­ness are what she will be re­mem­bered for.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, vet­er­an pan arranger Len ‘Boo­gie’ Sharpe was emo­tion­al as he re­vealed that he was the man re­spon­si­ble for in­tro­duc­ing Plum­mer to the ca­lyp­so are­na back in 1985.

“It’s tough. She was such a beau­ti­ful per­son, great artiste. We know she was sick and stuff, but you know, it’s still so hard to take in... The con­tri­bu­tion this la­dy made in the mu­sic scene was some­thing out of this world,” Sharpe said, adding her brav­ery was an­oth­er rea­son she will be so missed.

Re­flect­ing on one of her ear­ly per­for­mances, he said peo­ple in the crowd at Skin­ner Park threw toi­let pa­per at her when she made her de­but in the Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion.

How­ev­er, de­spite this sit­u­a­tion, Plum­mer re­turned the fol­low­ing year, with her own toi­let pa­per in hand. That time around, he said, she earned the re­spect of the Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta au­di­ence for bold­ly com­ing back.

Plum­mer’s friend and Parang queen Mar­cia Mi­ran­da mean­while re­called Plum­mer as a true sis­ter, both in and out­side of the in­dus­try.

“I knew Denyse (when) I was a teenag­er. We were neigh­bours ac­tu­al­ly. When I made the de­ci­sion to get in­to the mu­sic busi­ness, she was my men­tor,” Mi­ran­da said.

“There was no time that any­body could have gone to Denyse and ask for ad­vice or help in any way and she would say no... You know Denyse and cos­tum­ing right, and there was a time when I need­ed a cos­tume, and she called me to come up to the apart­ment and I went through her wardrobe, and she gave me about five things to choose from. That’s the kind of per­son she was to us. She was a great sis­ter in busi­ness. She re­al­ly was a beau­ti­ful sis­ter.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia via Zoom, for­mer Ca­lyp­so Queen Ann Marie Parks-Ko­jo, known as Twig­gy, said there was a time when no one could beat Plum­mer in com­pe­ti­tions.

“She came in­to ca­lyp­so be­cause she loved the art­form at that point in time. She did love it. ...Denyse per­formed and came down the win­ner for a cou­ple years straight. Yes, five times she won the Ca­lyp­so Queen com­pe­ti­tion and then she was at the Sa­van­nah. She made it to Di­manche Gras a cou­ple times well,” Parks-Ko­jo re­called.

Af­ter she dom­i­nat­ed the world of ca­lyp­so, Plum­mer went on to do the same in the gospel fra­ter­ni­ty. She had sev­er­al lo­cal gospel hits, even per­form­ing while bat­tling ill­ness.

For­mer Ca­lyp­so Queen Maria Bho­la said Plum­mer has left an un­mis­tak­able mark on the coun­try.

“I am re­al­ly grate­ful for what she has con­tributed to Trinidad and To­ba­go and to me per­son­al­ly...There’s a joy in me to know that in her lat­er years she did pro­claim pub­licly her love for Christ, so I am glad that she was at that space and place,” Bho­la said.