DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Hun­dreds of mourn­ers lined the streets of Ari­ma for the fu­ner­al of Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion, Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, and two of her chil­dren—25-year-old Xi­anne Ju­lian and six-year-old Je­si­ah Ju­lian—yes­ter­day, brav­ing heavy rain­fall and a yel­low-lev­el weath­er alert.

The Ju­lians were laid to rest in their home­town, near their Far­fan Street house, which now stands as a stark re­minder of their trag­ic deaths.

As the coffins for the for­mer MP and her chil­dren neared the San­ta Rosa RC Church, mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment Women’s League as well as young Air Scouts formed guards of ho­n­our to pay trib­ute to the woman laud­ed for her work in as­sist­ing peo­ple.

While scores of mourn­ers gath­ered in­side and out­side the church, oth­ers gath­ered at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um to view the ser­vice, which saw sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials present in­clud­ing En­er­gy and En­er­gy Ser­vices Min­is­ter Stu­art Young, Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert, Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds, Ari­ma coun­cil­lors, for­mer and cur­rent may­ors among oth­ers.

On­ly two Op­po­si­tion MPs at­tend­ed—Dr Rai Rag­bir and Rush­ton Paray.

Fa­ther Robert Chris­to led the ser­vice, of­fer­ing so­lace and strength to the griev­ing fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty.

Anya Ju­lian, the sur­viv­ing daugh­ter, de­liv­ered a heart­felt eu­lo­gy for her moth­er and two sib­lings, with the sup­port of one of her aunts. Re­flect­ing on her moth­er’s life, Anya said they shared the same birth­day, Au­gust 19, and not­ed that her moth­er’s an­niver­sary was al­so on that date in 2000.

Anya de­scribed her moth­er as the em­bod­i­ment of a car­ing big sis­ter, whose love and nur­tur­ing ex­tend­ed be­yond her im­me­di­ate fam­i­ly. Her lega­cy, Anya said, tran­scend­ed her roles as a par­ent and teacher, shap­ing her iden­ti­ty as a men­tor, politi­cian, and friend.

“Her love for her fam­i­ly was un­con­di­tion­al and in­fi­nite,” Anya de­clared.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s pas­sion for teach­ing was cen­tral to her life, with over a decade of ser­vice at Barataria South Sec­ondary and Ari­ma Cen­tral Sec­ondary. Anya said she left an in­deli­ble mark, not on­ly as a teacher but al­so as a men­tor, coun­sel­lor, and pro­tec­tor. She al­so re­called how her moth­er of­ten used her own mon­ey to en­sure her stu­dents had what they need­ed, high­light­ing her deep com­mit­ment to them.

Anya al­so shared a touch­ing mem­o­ry of a mes­sage her moth­er sent to her on Jan­u­ary 2, 2024. “On this day, one year ago, she sent me this mes­sage on What­sApp—as we start the new year, I want God to teach you the im­por­tance of grat­i­tude and em­pa­thy. This tragedy forced me to learn these traits bet­ter than I ever did be­fore,” she said tear­ful­ly.

“She was the best moth­er, wife, sis­ter, and daugh­ter any­body could ask for, and sor­ry to all the MPs here to­day, but she was the best MP in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” Anya added.

Her moth­er’s sud­den pass­ing, Anya re­flect­ed, was a painful re­minder that to­mor­row is nev­er promised.

“My moth­er’s biggest fear was death and she did her best to pre­pare us all for it as of­ten as pos­si­ble. A month ago, she was drop­ping Ix­i­ah to school and my­self to uni­ver­si­ty for an ex­am. As usu­al, Ix­i­ah and I were fight­ing. When she couldn’t take it any­more, she shout­ed at us that when she died, we would be all that each oth­er have and we need to learn to get along. I know she didn’t ex­pect that he and I would re­al­ly on­ly have each oth­er in the end...”

She said her mom had in­sist­ed that she and her broth­er ex­press three things they loved about each oth­er. Though they hadn’t fol­lowed her wish­es, Anya end­ed her eu­lo­gy by ex­press­ing her love for Ix­i­ah, telling him she ad­mired his strength and hu­mour and his pro­tec­tive na­ture—traits she would for­ev­er cher­ish.

Anya spoke emo­tion­al­ly of her sis­ter, Xi­anne, de­scrib­ing her as her best friend. They had planned many things to­geth­er, in­clud­ing a trip to New York, match­ing sun and moon tat­toos, and her be­ing the maid of ho­n­our at Xi­anne’s wed­ding. “These dreams re­main in my heart, un­ful­filled,” Anya said.

Xi­anne, di­ag­nosed with lu­pus two years ago, had faced life’s chal­lenges with courage, em­brac­ing each day with a re­newed sense of de­ter­mi­na­tion.

“Two years ago she was di­ag­nosed with lu­pus, a di­ag­no­sis that ter­ri­fied us all. She was scared, as were we, but she chose to live ful­ly de­spite it. She trav­elled as much as mum­my would al­low her to leave the coun­try, played mas, and em­braced life with a re­newed de­ter­mi­na­tion,” she said.

Al­though Je­si­ah’s life end­ed at the ten­der age of six, Anya de­scribed her younger broth­er as a shin­ing light—in­tel­li­gent, sharp, and full of joy.

“He taught us to cher­ish the small joys in life—a child’s laugh­ter, the won­der of an­i­mals, and the warmth of fam­i­ly,” she said, find­ing some com­fort in know­ing that the three are to­geth­er in heav­en.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­so spoke at the fu­ner­al ser­vice, re­call­ing the ex­tra­or­di­nary char­ac­ter of Mor­ris-Ju­lian. He reaf­firmed that she was “the best the Gov­ern­ment had to of­fer,” a state­ment he had made at a memo­r­i­al ser­vice at the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion on De­cem­ber 17.

“But to­day, I can tell you with­out fear of con­tra­dic­tion, in my own mind and for those who have the proof, that there has been no bet­ter per­son that I have met who has of­fered her­self or him­self for ser­vice and who has tak­en it in the best way it could be tak­en than Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian,” Row­ley em­pha­sised.

He re­flect­ed on her screen­ing for the D’Abadie/O’Meara seat, now Mal­abar/Mau­si­ca, which last­ed just one and a half min­utes—a tes­ta­ment to her com­pe­tence and the con­fi­dence oth­ers had in her.

“Lisa came for screen­ing re­cent­ly, and the screen­ing last­ed ap­prox­i­mate­ly one-and-a-half min­utes be­cause, as chair­man of the screen­ing com­mit­tee, I had no ques­tions to ask Lisa. And as part of the process, I asked my col­leagues, ‘Do you have any ques­tions for the young la­dy?’ and the an­swer was no. That was the end of Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s screen­ing,” Row­ley re­called.

He al­so com­mend­ed her abil­i­ty to work well with oth­ers, not­ing that in his time as Prime Min­is­ter, he of­ten had to in­ter­vene in dis­agree­ments among min­is­ters or par­lia­men­tary sec­re­taries. But with Mor­ris-Ju­lian, there was nev­er an is­sue. “There was nev­er an in­stance where I was con­cerned or I saw any fric­tion be­tween those two min­is­ters (Mor­ris-Ju­lian and Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly),” he said, high­light­ing her per­son­al­i­ty as a uni­fy­ing force.

Hous­ing Min­is­ter Camille Robin­son-Reg­is al­so mourned the loss of her po­lit­i­cal “daugh­ter” and right-hand in the PNM Na­tion­al Women’s League. She de­fend­ed the gen­uine grief ex­pressed by Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s col­leagues in the af­ter­math of her death, seem­ing­ly in re­sponse to crit­ics such as Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty Leader Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der, who had la­belled the emo­tion­al re­ac­tions hyp­o­crit­i­cal.

“I know there are many who will nev­er un­der­stand how col­leagues can come to an­guish so gen­uine­ly over the loss of an­oth­er, how we could tru­ly lament over some­one with whom we walked many miles, spent many hours and shared many thoughts, but we can and we do. Be­cause, at the end of the day, Lisa and all of us as politi­cians, re­gard­less of our af­fil­i­a­tion, are hu­mans first,” Robin­son-Reg­is stat­ed.

She con­clud­ed by quot­ing Num­bers 6:24-26: “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine up­on you and be gra­cious un­to you; the Lord turn his face to­ward you and give you peace.”

PNM stal­wart Ash­ton Ford shared that Lisa had been an ad­vo­cate for a mul­ti­pur­pose cen­tre in Ari­ma, and the fam­i­ly agreed that if such a project were to come to fruition, they would be ho­n­oured if it were named the Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian Mul­ti­pur­pose Cen­tre.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her chil­dren were in­terred at the San­ta Rosa RC Ceme­tery.