AKASH SAMA­ROO

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

Out­side of the Cathe­dral of the Im­mac­u­late Con­cep­tion, a man proud­ly held aloft a sign that said, “Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald, thanks for the verse in the song of the op­pressed.” Next to him, a woman wore a black t-shirt with words em­bla­zoned on the back say­ing, “Sea Lots Thanks You’.

They were among the many con­stituents of Port-of-Spain who were touched by Mc­Don­ald’s rep­re­sen­ta­tions. WIT­CO Des­per­a­does Steel Or­ches­tra, a host of Ca­lyp­so Monarch win­ners past and present in­clud­ing Du­ane Ta’zi­ah O’Con­nor, Karene As­che and NCC Chair­man Win­ston ‘Gyp­sy’ Pe­ters were al­so part of the cul­tur­al per­form­ers who came to pay trib­ute to a woman who not on­ly proud­ly came from Port-of-Spain but was proud­ly loved the peo­ple there.

Un­sur­pris­ing scenes, con­sid­er­ing that since her pass­ing the cen­tral theme with re­spect to the trib­utes paid to her, spoke of her un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to pub­lic ser­vice.

In­side the som­bre set­ting of the church, with her cas­ket be­fore the pul­pit, that ded­i­ca­tion to the peo­ple she rep­re­sent­ed was un­der­scored by every speak­er. Her broth­er, Hart­ley Cheva­lier Ju­nior, de­scribed her as a kind, car­ing and gen­er­ous per­son who was mo­ti­vat­ed through ser­vice to peo­ple. In fact, that was the ba­sis for the one re­quest the fam­i­ly had from the na­tion.

“My sis­ter was the best of us, please keep her in your mem­o­ry. Ho­n­our those mem­o­ries by be­ing of ser­vice to your com­mu­ni­ty,” Cheva­lier Ju­nior said.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) Fos­ter Cum­mings dubbed Mc­Don­ald as a “sol­dier of the peo­ple.” He jok­ing­ly re­called that Mc­Don­ald’s con­stituen­cy of­fice was al­ways filled with ham­pers de­spite the time of the year and those were for her peo­ple.

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley em­pha­sised her con­nec­tion with the peo­ple by de­scrib­ing her as a woman who was from the “salt of the earth” and who recog­nised the good in the peo­ple of Port-of-Spain South.

“Mar­lene al­ways thought there was a sun above and there was light to be had and dark­ness was nev­er an im­ped­i­ment to her,” Dr Row­ley said.

Dr Row­ley said his for­mer deputy po­lit­i­cal leader was one of the few peo­ple who gen­uine­ly be­lieved that pub­lic ser­vice was ho­n­ourable and lives could be changed through it.

The Prime Min­is­ter al­so fond­ly re­called an un­of­fi­cial role she held in the PNM dur­ing can­di­date screen­ing ses­sions.

“When we met in the af­ter­noon or usu­al­ly at night, Mar­lene would al­ways turn up with a bag of snacks. And be­fore we start­ed our pro­ceed­ings we would pray and then the next item on the agen­da was that Mar­lene would dis­trib­ute snacks every sin­gle time,” Dr Row­ley said.

He added that it got to the point where peo­ple would come to the meet­ings hun­gry to wait for Mc­Don­ald to bring some­thing for them to eat. And while it was one of the more light­heart­ed mo­ments of the ser­vice, Dr Row­ley said there was a se­ri­ous sym­bol­ic mean­ing be­hind Mc­Don­ald’s ac­tions.

“I think that was her way of show­ing us how life was in Port-of-Spain South, that there were peo­ple there wait­ing for some­thing eat and she took the as­sign­ment to en­sure they got some­thing to eat. Pub­lic ser­vice is not easy, but Mar­lene thought it was ho­n­ourable and that she could make changes,” the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Fa­ther Mar­tin Sir­ju, who of­fi­ci­at­ed the fu­ner­al ser­vice, al­so spoke of her ded­i­ca­tion to the poor and un­der­scored that a fu­ner­al was not the time to speak ill about a per­son’s char­ac­ter. He re­mind­ed the con­gre­ga­tion that a politi­cian’s job was nev­er easy, and de­ci­sions could be po­lar­is­ing.

“When it comes to pol­i­tics, 50 per cent of the peo­ple like you, while 50 per cent will not. Many will say that you are in it for the mon­ey, and the perks. It is a dif­fi­cult job, and you of­ten have to choose, not sim­ply be­tween good or bad but the less­er of two evils giv­ing rise to some­thing an old politi­cian said which is ‘pol­i­tics has its own moral­i­ty’,” Fa­ther Sir­ju ex­plained.

Songs were sung in Mc­Don­ald’s mem­o­ry to con­clude the ser­vice. In one of them, which was sung by a few peo­ple in­clud­ing Win­ston “Gyp­sy” Pe­ters, the lyrics said, “Mar­lene Mc­Don­ald we will al­ways re­mem­ber jump­ing when a steel band pass, dear Mar­lene, my dear with the things you do, they will nev­er for­get, nev­er for­get you.”

Al­so at­tend­ing Mc­Don­ald’s fu­ner­al were sev­er­al Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ters in­clud­ing Colm Im­bert, Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Faris Al-Rawi, Stu­art Young, Kaz­im Ho­sein and Ter­rence Deyals­ingh. Mc­Don­ald’s suc­ces­sor for the Port-of-Spain South seat, Kei­th Scot­land vis­i­bly wept near Mc­Don­ald’s cof­fin.

For­mer Min­is­ters Max­ie Cuffie and Robert Le Hunte were al­so present. Oth­er no­table at­ten­dees were Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne, Gov­ern­ment Sen­a­tor Lau­rel Leza­ma Lee-Sing, PNM stal­wart Joan Yuille Williams and Miss Uni­verse 1998 win­ner Wendy Fitzwilliam. Con­stituents of Port-of-Spain South al­so paid their re­spects in­clud­ing long-time friend of Mc­Don­ald, Chris­tine “Twig­gy” Livia.

No mem­bers of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress were seen at the fu­ner­al ser­vice.

Mc­Don­ald was lat­er buried at the West­ern Ceme­try in St James yes­ter­day af­ter­noon.

She passed away on Fri­day, De­cem­ber 8 at the St Clair Med­ical Cen­tre af­ter ail­ing for some time. Mc­Don­ald was a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, served as min­is­ter in sev­er­al min­istries and was a PNM deputy leader. She al­so served as Op­po­si­tion Chief Whip.