Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Mas­quer­ad­er Sel­wyn Lit­tle, who was crushed to death by a mu­sic truck on Car­ni­val Mon­day, loved the two-day event with a pas­sion, so it was on­ly fit­ting that he was dressed in his Car­ni­val cos­tume for his fi­nal send-off yes­ter­day.

His fel­low mas­quer­aders from D’ Jam­merz In­ter­na­tion­al Mil­i­tary Mas Band al­so wore their cos­tumes in his ho­n­our dur­ing Lit­tle’s fu­ner­al ser­vice at Our La­dy of Per­pet­u­al Help RC Church on Har­ris Prom­e­nade in San Fer­nan­do.

De­liv­er­ing his eu­lo­gy, his niece Josanne Samp­son said her un­cle was full of life, love, gen­eros­i­ty, pure fun and had “the biggest smile’ and “the warmest heart”.

Lit­tle, she said, loved life and was loved by every­one he met. Re­flect­ing on fond mem­o­ries of him, Samp­son, who lives abroad, re­called his im­pec­ca­ble style and pas­sion for mu­sic.

“Al­though he was small in stature, he car­ried a spir­it much larg­er than him. He didn’t just walk in­to a room; he bright­ened it. His smile could lift your spir­its, and his laugh­ter was con­ta­gious,” she said.

Re­call­ing that Lit­tle was al­so a mem­ber of the Joey Lewis Band, she said, “Al­though my un­cle Sel­wyn’s pass­ing may have been daunt­ing and trag­ic, his spir­it lives with­in us, re­mind­ing us to em­brace life every day with en­joy­ment.  We ho­n­our him by shar­ing the kind­ness and joy he em­bod­ied. Let us car­ry his joy for­ward and en­sure that his lega­cy con­tin­ues in the way we care for one an­oth­er as the way he lived his life.”

His friend John Ro­driguez, a mem­ber of the band, said Lit­tle was “like the may­or of San Fer­nan­do be­cause he was so well known.”

Lit­tle’s oth­er friend of 30 years, Julie Lewis, said he was a good per­son who was help­ful and gen­er­ous.

Lit­tle, al­so known as Shorty and Corky, was hold­ing the mas band’s ban­ner as he walked in front of the truck. As it turned on­to Cipero Street and be­gan de­scend­ing the hill, the brakes failed, ac­cord­ing to the dri­ver, crush­ing Lit­tle.

The in­ter­ment took place at Par­adise Ceme­tery.