Shal­iza Has­sanali

Iron La­dy.

This is how new­ly sworn-in Pres­i­dent Chris­tine Kan­ga­loo was fond­ly re­mem­bered by her dad Car­lyle who passed away in 1996.

Kan­ga­loo’s broth­er David yes­ter­day re­called that the term “Iron La­dy” was as­cribed to his strong-willed sis­ter by their beloved pa­tri­arch due to her de­ter­mi­na­tion and tena­cious at­ti­tude.

Beam­ing with pride about Kan­ga­loo be­ing in­au­gu­rat­ed as the coun­try’s sev­enth Pres­i­dent on Mon­day, David told Guardian Me­dia dur­ing a tele­phone in­ter­view “the fam­i­ly is very proud and hum­bled by her ap­point­ment.”

He said the fam­i­ly felt Kan­ga­loo’s in­au­gur­al ad­dress was an all-en­com­pass­ing speech.

“I think it was well done. The re­cep­tion she got from the crowd was a very good one. I be­lieve what she said her ob­jec­tives are....all the things she will be ad­vo­cat­ing for...I be­lieve she will fol­low up on those things. As Chris­tine said, she can’t do it alone. She must have the sup­port of every­one.”

Kan­ga­loo was adamant that the Of­fice of the Pres­i­dent should not be re­mote and that a mod­ernising of the pro­to­cols as­so­ci­at­ed with that should be done to al­low for the open­ing up of the doors of Pres­i­dent’s House.

The Pres­i­dent said she would like to see pub­lic ar­eas at Pres­i­dent’s House be­come “a cra­dle for in­tel­lec­tu­al, cul­tur­al and artis­tic ex­plo­ration,” among the youth of the coun­try.

A re­tired chief vet­eri­nar­i­an at the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, David said Kan­ga­loo spoke from her heart, promis­ing to fight for the peo­ple for the next five years in of­fice.

“If you know the fam­i­ly that is us. She has promised the coun­try a lot and know­ing her, as well as I do, I be­lieve she will try her best to de­liv­er.”

Ad­mit­ting that the Kan­ga­loos are a close-knit bunch, David said they al­ways lean on one an­oth­er for sup­port in dif­fi­cult and good times.

He said it has been the hall­mark of their fam­i­ly.

The Kan­ga­loos, he said had to en­dure a lot of pain, grief and sad­ness with the loss of three fam­i­ly mem­bers over the years and Kan­ga­loo her­self bat­tling can­cer.

Their two sib­lings Caryl and Wen­dell died in ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents. They al­so lost their fa­ther Car­lyle in 1996.

The deaths brought them to their knees.

“Par­tic­u­lar­ly the two ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dents and Chris­tine dur­ing her can­cer treat­ment. I think ba­si­cal­ly it is the sup­port that we all gave to one an­oth­er. That stands out in my mind.”

As the lone sis­ter among four broth­ers, David said, Kan­ga­loo took the role of “leader. She is the glue. We al­ways re­fer to her as the glue that holds the fam­i­ly to­geth­er. Chris­tine is al­ways the one to or­gan­ise fam­i­ly get-to­geth­ers. She still does it. I don’t know how much of that we will be see­ing in the fu­ture.”

David said grow­ing up, Kan­ga­loo was nick­named “Iron La­dy” by their fa­ther.

“He used to call her the iron la­dy be­cause she was a very strong, as­sertive and sup­port­ive at the same time.”

David said Kan­ga­loo in­her­it­ed this trait from their moth­er Bar­bara, who will cel­e­brate her 95th birth­day next Wednes­day.

Pressed if Kan­ga­loo would car­ry on the Iron La­dy’s role as Pres­i­dent, David replied “I don’t know. I would think through­out her ca­reer she has demon­strat­ed these sorts of char­ac­ter­is­tics and traits of a leader. So I don’t think any­thing will be dif­fer­ent in go­ing for­ward.”

David ad­mit­ted that the in­au­gu­ra­tion was a very emo­tion­al mo­ment for him and his sib­lings at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah.

The swear­ing cer­e­mo­ny brought him to tears.

“A cou­ple of us...were all very emo­tion­al,” he re­called.

Asked what was the most emo­tion­al mo­ment for him, David paused for al­most 30 sec­onds be­fore an­swer­ing.

“You have to give me a minute.... whew, whew,” he mut­tered, try­ing hard to con­tain his tears.

“It’s when she men­tioned,” he con­tin­ued, paus­ing again and tak­ing deep breaths this time “my de­ceased sib­lings....and my dad...when she said she wished they were present.”

David said be­cause of cir­cum­stances, they had to make the best of the sit­u­a­tion.

“And en­joy the mo­ment. That is what we did.”

Not tak­ing away from his sis­ter’s crown­ing ac­com­plish­ments, David spoke about his broth­er-in-law Ker­wyn Gar­cia (Kan­ga­loo’s) hus­band who he de­scribed as a gen­uine, car­ing, cour­te­ous and fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed in­di­vid­ual.

“That is how he is. He is a tremen­dous sup­port to her.”