NIGEL TELES­FORD

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

Mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese com­mu­ni­ty gath­ered at the Church of The As­sump­tion in Mar­aval on Fri­day to pay trib­ute to the ma­tri­arch of the Naim Sab­ga clan and cel­e­brate the life of the late, Char­lotte Sab­ga, who passed on Au­gust 30 at the age of 102 years. 

Her on­ly liv­ing son, Richard de­liv­ered a touch­ing eu­lo­gy shar­ing the sto­ry of her mar­riage to the late busi­ness­man, Naim Sab­ga and sub­se­quent mi­gra­tion to Trinidad and To­ba­go from her orig­i­nal home in Lebanon. 

“They set sail by boat—the year was 1939—the be­gin­ning of World War 2,” re­lat­ed Sab­ga. “Their jour­ney was noth­ing short of re­mark­able, and it be­came a sto­ry she would share for years to come.”  

The cou­ple’s pas­sage to the Caribbean by ship was wrought with fear­ful se­quences and clan­des­tine move­ments as sev­er­al oth­er ves­sels op­er­at­ing near and around them were at­tacked, bombed and ran­sacked. Sev­er­al smiles pierced the solem­ness of the oc­ca­sion, as Sab­ga shared the sto­ry of his moth­er’s ar­rival in sweet T&T, not­ing that the ini­tial lodg­ing or­gan­ised had placed the mink coat-wear­ing young wife in the heart of the cap­i­tal city and on the street that still bears her first name. 

Richard made note of his moth­er’s re­silience in the face of sub­se­quent tragedies:

“The loss of my fa­ther Naim and two broth­ers, Ra­mon and Car­los re­vealed her in­cred­i­ble strength and un­wa­ver­ing faith. Dur­ing these dif­fi­cult times, mom ful­ly em­braced her role as the ma­tri­arch of our fam­i­ly. She ex­em­pli­fied the im­por­tance of main­tain­ing strength in the face of de­spair, uni­ty dur­ing crises and faith and ac­cep­tance of God’s plan.”

Sev­er­al gen­er­a­tions of Sab­gas, Abouds, Georges, Hadeeds and oth­er fam­i­ly ad­di­tions as­sem­bled to pay their re­spects. Mem­bers of the Syr­i­an/Lebanese Women’s As­so­ci­a­tion wore their sash­es with pride and dis­tinc­tion as they fol­lowed the pall­bear­ers in­to the church hall for the pri­vate ser­vice. Sab­ga’s eu­lo­gy not­ed that on Jan­u­ary 1, 2022, Char­lotte cel­e­brat­ed her 100th birth­day and re­ceived a for­mal com­men­da­tion from King Charles then.

Vet­er­an mu­si­cian and pro­duc­er John Thomas as­sem­bled a stel­lar choir and in­stru­men­tal en­sem­ble with As­sump­tion Church singers Stephanie Na­hous and Wen­dell Con­stan­tine to share their trib­ute in songs, as friends of the fam­i­ly such as For­mer Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona, Ms Uni­verse 1999 Wendy Fitzwilliam and Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter, Faris Al-Rawi al­so at­tend­ed and lent their voic­es to the cel­e­bra­tion.