Gail Alexan­der

She was a woman whose life sto­ry could have be­come a best-sell­er.

But as friends and fam­i­ly would tell you, Maria Chep­ina Reyes de Aboud, who died last Sun­day, was down to earth—a woman re­mem­bered by her chil­dren as ad­vis­ing them to al­ways be true to them­selves. She was some­one lov­ing­ly re­mem­bered by friends for ser­vice and be­ing there.

And in the fi­nal chap­ter—Maria’s bat­tle with COVID-19—her lega­cy in­cludes that sto­ry that may help oth­ers.

Maria was the for­mer wife of busi­ness­man George Aboud and the moth­er of three boys: first born twins George Jr and Ger­ald and Ed­ward.

George passed away in 2003. A na­tive of Cara­cas, Venezuela, Maria, who was born in 1952, came to Trinidad at age 20 to study. Her two sib­lings, Tania and Ja­cob, still live in Venezuela.

By age 21 she was mar­ried and on her way to be­com­ing a busi­ness­woman.

Her San­dalias shoe bou­tique in Shoppes of Mar­aval and Eller­slie Plaza sold hand­made shoes from Venezuela and oth­er coun­tries. And Maria em­braced T&T life.

She was as well known at func­tions and for play­ing mas as she was for at­tend­ing to the home­less.

“They were her friends, they’d get ex­cit­ed to see her car pulling up,” her fam­i­ly re­called.

Ad­ven­tur­ous with a de­fi­ant spir­it, Maria faced every ob­sta­cle in her way, at the same time touch­ing the lives of those she en­coun­tered—“be­ing there,” her fam­i­ly said.

In 2010, when a good friend de­te­ri­o­rat­ed at their Wood­brook home and was giv­ing up, Maria was there every day, check­ing to en­sure they ate, ap­peal­ing, coax­ing her friend to sit up and wash away that neg­a­tive feel­ing.

And walk­ing the fi­nal road, she kept a cheer­ful spir­it, smil­ing even as she was test­ed for COVID—not know­ing her last chal­lenge had come.

Maria was vac­ci­nat­ed ear­li­er in the year and was near­ing the point to re­ceive a boost­er.

She didn’t go out. When she con­tract­ed COVID sev­er­al weeks ago, it was mod­er­ate.

But she was lat­er tak­en to hos­pi­tal, then In­ten­sive Care where she fought valiant­ly with the help of her chil­dren who tried every­thing to save her.

Her son Ger­ald (CEO of Star­lite Group) said, “Mom was ful­ly vac­ci­nat­ed and near­ing her six- month boost­er. At the six-month mark you don’t have the pro­tec­tion you had at the be­gin­ning. But we tried. Dr Ack­ram and his Med­ical As­so­ciates team per­formed mir­a­cles try­ing to save her.’’

He added, “Every life is im­por­tant. We must do what we can to pro­tect our­selves and save lives. Get­ting that boost­er ear­ly might be the best pro­tec­tion if you’re at risk for se­vere dis­ease. Da­ta shows that with­out a boost­er you’re at high­er risk for hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion and death as all ben­e­fits from the vac­cines wane over­time.”

“We al­so need to bol­ster our med­ical fa­cil­i­ties. Ear­ly treat­ment op­tions such as mon­o­clon­al an­ti­bod­ies (Re­gen­eron is good against Delta) can save lives when tak­en be­fore Day Six. Al­so, an­tivi­rals such as Remde­sivir are cru­cial tools. Nei­ther are avail­able in the pub­lic health care sys­tem. Med­ical As­so­ciates does of­fer Remde­sivir,” he said.

He al­so said: “With vac­cines for high risk groups we should con­sid­er giv­ing the vac­cine with the best per­for­mance re­gard­less of what they took be­fore, as well as prop­er in­jec­tion ad­min­is­tra­tion train­ing to pre­vent in­ad­ver­tent in­tra­venous in­jec­tion. ”

“We al­so learned that maybe not every­one should be treat­ed in a hos­pi­tal de­pend­ing on their con­di­tion; and that pos­i­tive out­look can make a big dif­fer­ence in out­come. Maybe not every­one is a can­di­date for hos­pi­tal­i­sa­tion since not hav­ing loved ones around can be trau­mat­ic.”

At Maria’s fu­ner­al on Thurs­day at the Church of As­sump­tion in Mar­aval, sons Ger­ald and Ed­ward re­called her life and how her lit­tle grand­sons were her pride and her grand­daugh­ter who ar­rived a few weeks ago, her joy.

They re­called her ex­cite­ment over a Julio Igle­sias con­cert which Ed­ward es­cort­ed her to.