Trib­utes con­tin­ue to pour from var­i­ous sec­tors of so­ci­ety fol­low­ing the death of Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for D'Abadie/O'Meara, Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, who al­so served as a Min­is­ter in the Min­istry of Ed­u­ca­tion.

Min­is­ter Mor­ris-Ju­lian and her two chil­dren, aged 25 and 6 years, died trag­i­cal­ly in the ear­ly hours of Mon­day morn­ing, in a fire at their fam­i­ly home on Far­fan Street, Ari­ma.

Pro-Vice Chan­cel­lor and Prin­ci­pal of The UWI’s St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus, Pro­fes­sor Rose-Marie An­toine, ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the late Min­is­ter’s fam­i­ly in a state­ment is­sued to­day, and point­ed to her con­tri­bu­tion to the ed­u­ca­tion sec­tor as a for­mer school­teacher and alum­na of The Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, St. Au­gus­tine Cam­pus. She al­so high­light­ed the late MP’s pub­lic ser­vice record.

“On a pro­fes­sion­al lev­el, Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian was a val­ued where she laid the foun­da­tion for her il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer. Her pas­sion for play­writ­ing earned her nu­mer­ous awards at the sec­ondary school lev­el and left an in­deli­ble mark on the stu­dents she taught,” Pro­fes­sor An­toine not­ed. “Her jour­ney from an in­spir­ing teacher to a re­spect­ed pub­lic ser­vant high­lights the pro­found and last­ing in­flu­ence she had on her com­mu­ni­ty.”

“On a per­son­al lev­el, and as a fel­low ‘Arim­i­an’, I re­mem­ber and re­flect up­on Min­is­ter Mor­ris-Ju­lian with deep fond­ness as I have lost a cher­ished col­league whose kind­ness, wis­dom and warmth touched many lives, in­clud­ing my own,” Dr An­toine shared. “Words can­not ex­press the deep sad­ness we feel at the pass­ing of Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian, but we find com­fort in know­ing that her spir­it of ded­i­ca­tion and ex­cel­lence will con­tin­ue to in­spire us.”

And Par­lia­men­tary col­league from the Op­po­si­tion bench­es, Rod­ney Charles, the Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment for Na­pari­ma, de­scribed the late D'Abadie/O'Meara MP Lisa Mor­ris-Ju­lian as some­one who was “con­sumed with ser­vice to her coun­try, her fel­low cit­i­zens, her prin­ci­ples and her fam­i­ly.”

“The news of her pass­ing and the man­ner of her death are hard to take, even for those who have much ex­pe­ri­ence with the tri­als and tribu­la­tions of life,” he said. “Grief, es­pe­cial­ly in this sea­son, does not dis­crim­i­nate.”

“While nei­ther giv­en to the lime­light nor over­ly ag­gres­sive, she was a qui­et, dig­ni­fied force in Par­lia­ment that could not be ig­nored,” MP Charles said in his trib­ute to late MP Mor­ris-Ju­lian.

“We last spoke at a func­tion two evenings ago where she demon­strat­ed clear­ly that while we sat on op­pos­ing sides of the po­lit­i­cal di­vide, we could still be cor­dial to each oth­er, re­spect­ful of dif­fer­ent views, and gen­uine­ly—in the spir­it of Christ­mas and life gen­er­al­ly—wish the best for all God’s chil­dren,” he re­called.

“In the cor­ri­dors of Par­lia­ment, she was al­ways proud of her in­dige­nous her­itage and her links to the peo­ple of Ari­ma. In­side the cham­bers her con­tri­bu­tions were al­ways root­ed in facts and de­liv­ered with pas­sion yet spo­ken in a firm and qui­et­ly dig­ni­fied man­ner,” MP Charles not­ed.