Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Giselle Crys­tal Pe­ters over­came two life-threat­en­ing chal­lenges on­ly to have her life snuffed out when she was at­tacked by three men.

This was re­vealed by Pe­ters’ two younger sis­ters in their joint eu­lo­gy at her fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day.

They said short­ly af­ter her birth, Pe­ters was di­ag­nosed with sick­le cell anaemia, but “she fought to live and live she did.” Then she re­cent­ly fell ill with pneu­mo­nia but “that de­ter­mi­na­tion shone through to the amaze­ment of the doc­tors who were very sur­prised that she was so healthy.”

The Sco­tia­bank em­ploy­ee died af­ter she was stabbed re­peat­ed­ly while vis­it­ing her soon-to-be-com­plet­ed dream home at Re­form Vil­lage, Gas­par­il­lo, on Ju­ly 27.

De­spite the bru­tal cir­cum­stances of Pe­ters’ death, mourn­ers at her home­go­ing ser­vice were en­cour­aged to for­give the men who took her life.

She was re­mem­bered as qui­et and hum­ble with a gen­eros­i­ty that knew no bounds.

Her rel­a­tives said in the eu­lo­gy: “In her 37 years of life on this earth, Crys­tal was well ac­com­plished and was build­ing a lega­cy, a lega­cy that will live on in her chil­dren.”

They promised to care for her two daugh­ters, ages six and nine.

Sev­er­al speak­ers at­test­ed to Pe­ters’ warm and lov­ing per­son­al­i­ty, in­clud­ing cus­tomers she had in­ter­act­ed with at the bank. They said apart from her pro­fes­sion­al­ism, she was a con­fi­dant and friend, and one cus­tomer de­scribed her as a “shin­ing light.”

Of­fi­ci­at­ing min­is­ter Pas­tor Si­mon told griev­ing rel­a­tives that the more they want­ed jus­tice or vengeance the more they would har­bour hate and anger and the longer the heal­ing process would take. He en­cour­aged them to leave every­thing in God’s hands.

“Ask God, who­ev­er it may be, God knows, Fa­ther for­give him, or for­give them, or for­give her. I don’t know who it is, I was not there, but she is dead. Ask Fa­ther, for­give them for they know not what they have done and it is there, the heal­ing is go­ing to take place,” he said.

Of­fer­ing words of en­cour­age­ment to Pe­ters’ rel­a­tives was Pas­tor David Richard­son, who lost his son to gun vi­o­lence four years ago. He told them the on­ly com­fort they could re­ly on was the word of God.

Pe­ters’ col­leagues from So­cia­bank were among the scores of mourn­ers at the fu­ner­al.

Fol­low­ing the ser­vice bur­ial took place at the Ec­cles Vil­lage Pub­lic Ceme­tery in Williamsville.