Con­sid­ered a gem in this coun­try’s cul­tur­al crown, mem­o­ries of Denyse Plum­mer’s shin­ing life on stage as an en­ter­tain­er and be­hind closed doors as a nur­tur­ing ma­tri­arch, de­vot­ed Catholic and pas­sion­ate an­i­mal ad­vo­cate were trea­sured in trib­utes by friends, fam­i­ly and fans as she was laid to rest yes­ter­day.

From as ear­ly as 8 am, mourn­ers be­gan fil­ing in­to Queen’s Hall in St Ann’s, where both the walls and halls of the per­form­ing arts cen­tre were draped with the na­tion­al colours in ho­n­our of the icon who died on Au­gust 27, fol­low­ing her bat­tle with can­cer.

Dur­ing a pre­lude to the fu­ner­al ser­vice for the for­mer ca­lyp­so monarch and na­tion­al awardee, mem­bers of the crowd were treat­ed to per­for­mances of var­i­ous re­li­gious songs from the TTPS Brass Quin­tet, Los Alum­nos De San Juan and Jo­hann “D’ Pi­ano Girl” Chucka­ree.

Around 10 am, guests, in­clud­ing Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters Ran­dall Mitchell, Mar­vin Gon­za­les, Pen­ne­lope Beck­les and Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, as well as mem­bers of the cul­tur­al fra­ter­ni­ty, among them Neil Iw­er George, De­stra Gar­cia and Michell Xavier, gath­ered in the hall’s lob­by area and were sub­se­quent­ly ush­ered in­to the au­di­to­ri­um where they were seat­ed. Among those oc­cu­py­ing the first row were Plum­mer’s im­me­di­ate rel­a­tives, in­clud­ing her hus­band and sons, Jesse and Robert Boocock.

Sweep­ing through the aisles were wide rang­ing mem­o­ries of one woman held by hun­dreds in at­ten­dance and af­ter set­tling in­to their seats, Min­is­ter Ma­halia Pierre de­liv­ered the open­ing prayer fol­lowed by a ren­di­tion of To God be the Glo­ry by Wen­dell Con­stan­tine.

Adding to the solemn at­mos­phere that had blan­ket­ed the au­di­to­ri­um was a heart-wrench­ing eu­lo­gy de­liv­ered by the sons of the late cul­tur­al am­bas­sador.

Af­ter ex­press­ing grat­i­tude to those in­volved in or­gan­is­ing his moth­er’s ser­vice, Jesse Boocock di­alled in on his moth­er’s un­wa­ver­ing love and faith.

“Our moth­er was a re­mark­able woman, a woman of hon­esty and in­tegri­ty, a woman of class and el­e­gance, a woman of fam­i­ly and God. She was as kind as she was tal­ent­ed, seem­ing­ly able to con­nect with any­one, any­where and com­mand any room.”

As he peeled back the lay­ers of tal­ent and tenac­i­ty that cat­a­pult­ed his moth­er to ca­lyp­so star­dom, Boocock un­veiled her nur­tur­ing and heart-warm­ing na­ture to the au­di­ence.

“Even be­fore she ful­ly com­mit­ted her life to God, she had a good­ness about her that every­body loved, her brand was love, it’s what she rep­re­sent­ed, she en­joyed mak­ing peo­ple feel spe­cial, don’t think it was dumb luck that a few rolls of toi­let pa­per got her on top of her game. She was a hard work­er and she loved what she did and she loved her coun­try.”

Jesse, the el­dest broth­er, al­so pledged to en­sure Plum­mer’s en­dear­ing lega­cy live on through her char­i­ta­ble works.

“She came to Rob­bie and I with the idea of open­ing the Denyse Plum­mer foun­da­tion in an ef­fort to give back most in need and yes, maybe a dog or two. We ful­ly in­tend to car­ry out her wish­es and we will run the foun­da­tion to­geth­er.”

Robert re­count­ed how, even dur­ing her most chal­leng­ing pe­ri­od, Plum­mer’s re­silience res­onat­ed.

“Mom was di­ag­nosed with stage four gas­tric can­cer a year and a half ago and since that day, her life ex­pectan­cy has al­ways been un­clear to us. I was sched­uled to get mar­ried 10 months af­ter this di­ag­no­sis. As her last son, she made it clear that she need­ed to live to see her youngest son get mar­ried. As my old­er broth­er got mar­ried two years pri­or, my wed­ding came and went and God al­lowed us to have our moth­er-son dance in front all our clos­est friends and fam­i­ly.”

A video trib­ute fea­tur­ing com­pi­la­tions of snap­shots of Plum­mer’s life and ca­reer was al­so fea­tured dur­ing the ser­vice.

Ace steel­pan arranger Dr Len “Boogsie” Sharpe al­so paid trib­ute to his sis­ter in mu­sic.

“Denyse Plum­mer in a class by her­self. I get cuss for bring­ing her in kaiso are­na, but me ent study­ing them, I want to win Panora­ma and I see she as a win­ner and every­body like Woman is Boss and oth­er songs, Nah Leav­ing. She is an icon and God bless her soul,” he said.

Dur­ing the ser­vice, John Thomas and the Be­lieve Artist Col­lec­tive, Blessed Mes­sen­ger, The St Hi­laire Broth­ers, Pas­tor Christo­pher Tam­bu Her­bert and the Holy Name Con­vent choir, along with the Goret­ti Group, all per­formed songs that stirred emo­tions.

How­ev­er, it was a fi­nal trib­ute ren­di­tion of Cyah Leave Him, a gospel cross-over penned by Plum­mer of her pop­u­lar song Nah Leav­ing, led by Min­is­ter Ma­halia Pierre, that fired up the crowd, caus­ing many to rise off their seats clap­ping and sway­ing.

The fu­ner­al ser­vice, which spanned just over two hours, cul­mi­nat­ed with cul­tur­al items, in­clud­ing drum­ming, dances and per­for­mances by Phase II Pan Groove, Cen­tral Stars Tas­sa group, Tan Tan and Saga Boy, Red­man and Li­on and the North West Laven­tille Cul­tur­al Move­ment, as her cas­ket was placed in­to the hearse. Speak­ing with the me­dia af­ter­wards, Min­is­ter of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts, Ran­dall Mitchell, was con­fi­dent that Plum­mer’s pi­o­neer­ing spir­it will en­dure.

“As far as our com­mit­ment to ho­n­our­ing her lega­cy, the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion is charged with that and we look for­ward to the Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion and TU­CO to keep her lega­cy and mem­o­ry alive with a trend of events ho­n­our­ing Denyse Plum­mer.”

Na­tion­al Car­ni­val Com­mis­sion chair­man, Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, hailed Plum­mer’s work and con­tri­bu­tions to the ca­lyp­so in­dus­try and not­ed that above any­thing else, her friend­ship will be most cher­ished.

Man­ag­ing and cre­ative di­rec­tor at Mac Far­lane Car­ni­val, Bri­an Mac Far­lane, al­so un­der­scored Plum­mer’s con­tri­bu­tion to the art­form and her abil­i­ty to re­main un­daunt­ed in the face of ad­ver­si­ties.

“Denyse Plum­mer was Trinidad and To­ba­go, she was every­thing that you want Trinidad and To­ba­go to be, she loved peo­ple, she loved our coun­try, she loved an­i­mals and she gave her all and her best and that is who we need to be. We need to strive to be the best we can be,” Mac Far­lane said.

“Denyse and I did many events to­geth­er. I re­mem­ber when Gen­er­al (Col­in) Pow­ell vis­it­ed at the Hilton Ball room, I asked Denyse to open for T&T and the Amer­i­can an­them and when he heard her, he came and asked who sang the an­them and he want­ed to meet her. He salut­ed her and bowed and said it was the most beau­ti­ful ren­di­tion of the an­them he had ever heard.”

Mac Far­lane al­so ad­vo­cat­ed for Plum­mer’s teach­ing and lega­cy to be taught through­out schools.

Mean­while, Ri­an St Hi­laire, a mem­ber of the St Hi­laire broth­ers, a gospel vo­cal quar­tet, told Guardian Me­dia that work­ing along­side Plum­mer in the gospel are­na was in­spi­ra­tional.

“She cared about Je­sus, she put every­thing aside and she be­came one who lived for Je­sus and she would en­cour­age us, when we were back stage many times, we were al­ways side by side she would give us so much en­cour­age­ment and en­sured we used our tal­ents for the Lord and that we prayed,” St Hi­laire said.

Plum­mer was even­tu­al­ly cre­mat­ed dur­ing a pri­vate cer­e­mo­ny at the Clarke and Bat­too fu­ner­al home in Port-of-Spain.