OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Mem­bers of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment and its Women’s League, who were all dressed in white, yes­ter­day gath­ered at Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain to ho­n­our late Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion and Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for D’Abadie/O’Meara, Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, and two of her chil­dren.

Mor­ris-Ju­lian, 48, died on Mon­day in a fire at her Ari­ma res­i­dence, along with her six-year-old son, Je­si­ah, and 25-year-old daugh­ter Xi­anne.

The for­mer gov­ern­ment min­is­ter and MP was de­scribed as a valu­able as­set to the par­ty who will be dear­ly missed.

The memo­r­i­al ser­vice drew mem­bers of her con­stituen­cy, her sur­viv­ing chil­dren, fam­i­ly—in­clud­ing her moth­er Ann Mor­ris—and close rel­a­tives.

Speak­ing at the memo­r­i­al ser­vice, PNM chair­man and En­er­gy Min­is­ter Stu­art Young de­scribed Mor­ris-Ju­lian as the back­bone of the par­ty, em­pha­sis­ing her ded­i­ca­tion and self­less­ness.

“Lisa was the most self­less, giv­ing, pure, and gen­uine soul. She ex­em­pli­fied every­thing good—hum­ble, com­mit­ted, and al­ways ready to serve. What many may not know is that Lisa was our key­board war­rior be­hind the scenes. She draft­ed the dif­fi­cult re­leas­es and ral­lied the troops with un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion,” Young said.

He added, “On Mon­day, the PNM lost one of our great­est sis­ters and, in my hum­ble opin­ion, one of the great­est as­sets we have ever had. Let us give her a round of ap­plause for the in­cred­i­ble lega­cy she leaves be­hind.”

The evening be­gan with in­ter­faith wor­ship, re­flect­ing the di­verse re­li­gious com­mu­ni­ties of the D’Abadie/O’Meara con­stituen­cy. Cab­i­net Min­is­ters in at­ten­dance in­clud­ed Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds; Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Min­is­ter Symon de No­bri­ga; Rur­al and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Faris Al-Rawi; Ed­u­ca­tion Min­is­ter Dr Nyan Gads­by-Dol­ly, Trade and In­dus­try Min­is­ter Paula Gopee-Scoon; At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Regi­nald Ar­mour, and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert. Al­so present were Port-of-Spain May­or Chin­ua Al­leyne and San Fer­nan­do May­or Robert Par­ris.

Speak­ing on be­half of the PNM Women’s League, sec­ond vice chair Mar­lene To­bias de­liv­ered a mes­sage from la­dy chair Camille Robin­son-Reg­is, who was out of the coun­try.

“Lisa made us bet­ter—she made her col­leagues in Par­lia­ment bet­ter, the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives a bet­ter place, and, for many, the coun­try a bet­ter place,” To­bias read.

She added, “As some­one fierce­ly de­vot­ed to her fam­i­ly, Lisa ex­pe­ri­enced the dev­as­tat­ing loss of her fa­ther about nine months ago. This loss pained her deeply, and she some­times sec­ond-guessed her­self, won­der­ing if she had been a good enough daugh­ter as the el­dest child. Her ded­i­ca­tion, hu­mil­i­ty, and un­wa­ver­ing com­mit­ment to fam­i­ly and pub­lic ser­vice will al­ways be re­mem­bered.”

A state-as­sist­ed fu­ner­al is be­ing planned to ho­n­our the late min­is­ter and her chil­dren, with de­tails to be an­nounced soon.