“We have had hun­dreds of con­ver­sa­tions, and in every one of those ex­changes, Mr Pres­i­dent (Sud­hir Rames­sar) on­ly sought the bet­ter­ment of oth­ers. I have nev­er known him to ask for any­thing for him­self or to en­quire for any­thing on his own be­half,” Sen­a­tor Dr. Amery Browne.

I re­ceived the What­sApp mes­sage from Kavi­ta, the wife of Sud­hir at 2.09 am Sat­ur­day (De­cem­ber 20) morn­ing that he had passed away. I didn’t see it un­til 5 am. I was so afraid that it was true, I con­tact­ed Micky Ruben (not Kavi­ta), who told me yes, it was true. I felt such a pro­found sense of loss and sad­ness that my faith was shak­en and for a few min­utes of un­be­lief, I chal­lenged the wis­dom of the high­er in­tel­li­gence.

We live in a world that blames vic­tims for fail­ing to thrive. Laws and rules, strate­gies and plans that de­ny peo­ple op­por­tu­ni­ties and keep them fight­ing for scraps. A sys­tem that seeks to ex­clude, not in­clude, can be cru­el to those who may be con­sid­ered an un­com­fort­able truth or even a nui­sance.

​Sud­hir Rames­sar, pres­i­dent of the T&T Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee (TTPC), gave hope to a com­mu­ni­ty that of­ten felt aban­doned. He chose re­spon­si­bil­i­ty over safe­ty and se­cu­ri­ty. He chose ad­vo­ca­cy and ac­tivism over fear. He chose to be vis­i­ble in­stead of in­vis­i­ble.

Sud­hir is an in­spi­ra­tion. His dig­ni­ty, re­silience and above all, his courage. His life was an es­say in courage. A life that re­vealed that courage wasn’t the ab­sence of fear or de­spair but the will­ing­ness to go for­ward notwith­stand­ing fear or de­spair.

He en­dured sig­nif­i­cant crit­i­cism and ap­a­thy. At times, it may have dis­cour­aged him but it nev­er de­terred him.

I re­call his de­ter­mi­na­tion that Par­a­lympic T&T would be rep­re­sent­ed at the Com­mon­wealth Youth Games, the twin-is­land re­pub­lic host­ed in 2023. That Team TTO was rep­re­sent­ed was a trib­ute to his re­fusal to not give up. He ab­sorbed the neg­a­tives and kept go­ing for­ward.

On­ly re­cent­ly, he was tak­en aback by cer­tain state­ments and al­le­ga­tions that while hurt­ful, didn’t de­ter him. The in­dif­fer­ence that could have frus­trat­ed him. But he nev­er al­lowed it to.

He over­came odds that many con­sid­ered im­pos­si­ble.

We are all sub­ject to crit­i­cism and Sud­hir was no dif­fer­ent. A num­ber of per­sons have had con­ver­sa­tions with me about what they per­ceive as his short­com­ings. But his un­der­stand­ing of the Par­a­lympic Move­ment was such that it gave him the clar­i­ty of thought that rubbed some peo­ple the wrong way. Nonethe­less, in Oc­to­ber this year, he was elect­ed to the Amer­i­c­as Par­a­lympic Com­mit­tee and was in­flu­en­tial with­in the Caribbean Par­a­lympic Move­ment. No mat­ter the fi­nan­cial ob­sta­cles, he did his best to mar­shal the fi­nances for Team TTO Par­a­lympic par­tic­i­pa­tion at var­i­ous Games. It was eas­i­er said than done, yet he got it done.

​A few weeks ago, we dis­cussed the up­com­ing 12th Marathon Chal­lenge on Jan­u­ary 18, 2026. He told me, “I will be there.” But now he wouldn’t be there. It was our con­ver­sa­tions over the years that were the cat­a­lyst to change the name from Marathon Walk to Marathon Chal­lenge. This year, he par­tic­i­pat­ed as best as he could.

​His courage, his light, and his mem­o­ry will nev­er be dimmed. He took every neg­a­tive and trans­formed it in­to un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion. I ad­mired and re­spect­ed his in­domitable will, his per­se­ver­ance, and his for­ti­tude.

​May he rest in eter­nal peace.