DA­REECE PO­LO

Se­nior Re­porter

da­reece.po­lo@guardian.co.tt

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley has ex­pressed pro­found ad­mi­ra­tion for the brav­ery and self­less­ness of Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, high­light­ing her ul­ti­mate sac­ri­fice as she tried to pro­tect two of her chil­dren dur­ing a dev­as­tat­ing fire that claimed all three of their lives on Mon­day.

Dr Row­ley shared this heart­felt rev­e­la­tion dur­ing a memo­r­i­al ser­vice host­ed by the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion at its St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain head­quar­ters to ho­n­our Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s mem­o­ry yes­ter­day.

“To think of los­ing her and be­ing told that she may have been hug­ging her child to her chest as she passed away from the flames; those of you who have chil­dren, it’s an as­sign­ment that you would nev­er want to have but she had it,” he told a room full of mourn­ers, many of whom were moved to tears dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny.

“She was a gem. She was easy to work with. She was easy to live with. She was a com­mu­ni­ty per­son. She was a tow­er of strength with­out any noise to make it known,” he added.

Row­ley re­called the last time he saw the late min­is­ter at the Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tion he host­ed at the Diplo­mat­ic Cen­tre in St Ann’s on Sat­ur­day. He said Mor­ris-Ju­lian at­tend­ed with her hus­band Daniel and, true to her char­ac­ter, was “hap­py, gen­tle, talk­ing to every­body” be­fore tak­ing pic­tures with his fam­i­ly and qui­et­ly mak­ing her ex­it through the crowd.

Giv­ing her his high­est praise, Row­ley de­scribed her as the best of the best with­in his Gov­ern­ment.

“I was nev­er to know that that was the last time I would be see­ing the best rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the Gov­ern­ment of Trinidad and To­ba­go,” he stat­ed.

The Prime Min­is­ter re­vealed he first learned of Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s pass­ing from his wife, who ap­proached him with the trag­ic news. He re­count­ed the over­whelm­ing grief that fol­lowed, rob­bing him of sleep.

“I woke up to dis­cov­er that I was cov­ered in tears. I didn’t know when I was cry­ing but I was cov­ered in tears be­cause the loss of Lisa Mor­ris, to me, is... it comes close to want­i­ng to ques­tion faith... How could this be?”

He al­so spoke of his trep­i­da­tion re­gard­ing her fu­ner­al, the de­tails of which are yet to be dis­closed.

“As I speak to you now, I dread the day of the fu­ner­al, when I ex­pect that it will all hang out from all of us,” he said.

De­spite the sad­ness, he ex­pressed hope that Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s life would serve as a re­minder of the no­bil­i­ty of pub­lic ser­vice, de­scrib­ing her as the truest ex­am­ple of ded­i­ca­tion and sac­ri­fice.

Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, vis­i­bly shak­en through­out the cer­e­mo­ny, shared emo­tion­al re­flec­tions on her col­league and friend.

“If there was one thing that de­fined Lisa, it was her ded­i­ca­tion to her fam­i­ly and to her chil­dren. She lived that way in life and she died that way and I don’t think there was any oth­er way that Lisa would have cho­sen,” she said.

Gads­by-Dol­ly re­called Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s un­wa­ver­ing love for chil­dren, which was ev­i­dent dur­ing her time at the min­istry. She re­vealed that Mor­ris-Ju­lian had cho­sen to over­see ear­ly child­hood care and ed­u­ca­tion cen­tres, en­sur­ing they re­ceived the at­ten­tion they de­served, even dur­ing the chal­lenges of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic. Be­ing part of the min­istry, Gads­by-Dol­ly not­ed, was one of Mor­ris-Ju­lian’s proud­est achieve­ments.

The memo­r­i­al ser­vice, of­fi­ci­at­ed by Fr Robert Chris­to, was on the min­istry’s ground floor, a space typ­i­cal­ly oc­cu­pied by staff and se­cu­ri­ty per­son­nel.

Sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials at­tend­ed to pay their re­spects, in­clud­ing Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga; Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion Min­is­ter Has­sel Bac­chus; Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein; Youth De­vel­op­ment Min­is­ter Fos­ter Cum­mings; Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan; Health Min­is­ter Ter­rence Deyals­ingh; At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour; Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon; Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Trans­port Rishi Sookhai; Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture Avinash Singh and Deputy House Speak­er Es­mond Forde.