It was a solemn day in San Fer­nan­do yes­ter­day, as for­mer prime min­is­ter Bas­deo Pan­day’s body lay in ho­n­our at the South­ern Acad­e­my for Per­form­ing Arts (SAPA), with tears flow­ing from his fam­i­ly and sup­port­ers who showed up to catch a fi­nal glimpse of one of T&T’s most beloved lead­ers.

Un­like last Fri­day in Port-of-Spain, there was no fan­fare as the mil­i­tary es­cort­ed Pan­day’s body to SAPA short­ly be­fore 8 am. With­in min­utes, peo­ple lined the en­trance to sign the con­do­lence book and say good­bye ahead of the fu­ner­al this morn­ing.

There was a warm em­brace be­tween Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Dr Amery Browne and Pan­day’s daugh­ter Mick­ela, who led fam­i­ly mem­bers in greet­ing the pub­lic. Mick­ela’s birth­day was al­so yes­ter­day.

There was com­mon grief felt by those who at­tend­ed, in­clud­ing po­lice of­fi­cers, at­tor­neys, Joint Trade Union Move­ment leader An­cel Ro­get, lawyers, scouts from his al­ma mater Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege, San Fer­nan­do and oth­ers.

Many reg­u­lar cit­i­zens re­called down-to-earth en­coun­ters with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress founder fond­ly called the Sil­ver Fox.

Dur­ing her days in Par­lia­ment as a mem­ber of the Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment, for­mer min­is­ter of Com­mu­ni­ty De­vel­op­ment, Cul­ture and Gen­der Af­fairs Joan Yuille-Williams was a po­lit­i­cal op­po­nent. But as she gazed up­on his body, she wished him en­joy­ment in eter­nal rest.

“Yes, he was a politi­cian, but he was a friend of mine, and when­ev­er we met, we were hap­py to do so and greet each oth­er very warm­ly,” Yuille-Williams said.

Sport­ing an old Cou­va North elec­tion cam­paign T-shirt with a pic­ture of a younger Pan­day, Narad Mowiah left his Wa­ter­loo home at 5 am, trav­el­ling by taxi to the city.

“This is my fa­ther, you know,” Mowiah told jour­nal­ists.

“I was on the brink, and that man in­spired my life. He told me you must not let any­body lift you. You have to lift your­self. What I achieved in life was through that man.”

For Clax­ton Bay res­i­dent Rad­ha Ram­per­sad, Pan­day’s kind­ness had her emo­tions at break­ing point. Hold­ing a pho­to of her pos­ing with Pan­day, she re­called the sad­ness that con­sumed her when she learned of his pass­ing. She re­mem­bered that 19 years ago, she had to get $7,000 to pay for an elec­tric­i­ty pole to pow­er her home. She said Pan­day stepped in, bear­ing the cost. Ram­per­sad said she would re­mem­ber Pan­day’s hum­ble na­ture and will­ing­ness to help peo­ple.

“I met him at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um at a Ku­mar Sanu show, and he was re­al­ly down to earth. We laughed. We talked and took pic­tures. The same thing he was eat­ing on his ta­ble, I was eat­ing the same thing be­cause he in­vit­ed me to eat with them,” Ram­per­sad re­called.

Founder of the An­gel Hearts Re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion Cen­tre, Bri­an Bis­soon­dath, al­so wore an old elec­tion T-shirt fea­tur­ing Pan­day’s face. Bis­soonath said Pan­day opened a re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion cen­tre at Wood­ford Lodge, Ch­agua­nas, in 1998 and en­cour­aged him to serve hu­man­i­ty.

“He would al­ways say fight for what you be­lieve in. Serve not for self but for peo­ple and coun­try. Al­though younger than him, I went through many bat­tles un­der his stew­ard­ship. Even when he left the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter and con­tin­ued with the Bas­deo Pan­day Foun­da­tion, he was still part of my coun­sel and men­tor, help­ing me to de­vel­op pro­grammes to as­sist oth­er or­gan­i­sa­tions with­in Cen­tral Trinidad and even on the East­ern part of the is­land,” Bis­soon­dath said.

It has been a busy sched­ule for Mick­ela since her fa­ther’s death on New Year’s Day. She ex­pe­ri­enced a con­tra­dic­tion of feel­ings yes­ter­day, say­ing that while the im­mense grief of her fam­i­ly was in­de­scrib­able, the out­pour­ing of love from cit­i­zens was both over­whelm­ing and com­fort­ing.

“I say it is dif­fi­cult be­cause it is im­mense loss and grief, but then there are so many peo­ple who have come home and shown love, and they give you that com­fort,” Mick­ela said.

“Yes, it is hard, but it is heart-warm­ing at the same time. It is just a feel­ing that no one could prob­a­bly de­scribe un­less they have gone through it them­selves.”

Pan­day’s wife, Oma, was not there, and Mick­ela ex­plained it was still too hard for her to face the pub­lic.

“This was her life part­ner. She is griev­ing im­mense­ly, but I be­lieve that she has been so strong, and I am proud of her, and she will do this. We will do this to­geth­er, and she has all her girls and fam­i­ly.”