Asot Michael Speech

Euology of Ms. Eslyn Delelia Lewis

Thursday, 04 August 2011

“Farewell to you and the youth I have spent with you.

It was but yesterday we met in a dream

You have sung to me…and built a tower in the sky.

 But now our dream is over… and we must part.

If in the twilight of memory we should meet once more, we shall speak again together, and you shall sing to me a deeper song.

 And if our hands should meet in another dream, we shall build another tower in the sky.”

Friends and family, these are the parting words of Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet, poet of the poor Kadisha Valley in northeastern Lebanon, the birth place of all of my ancestors. He was one of the spiritual artists of the western world.

We have come today to mourn the passing and to celebrate the life of Eslyn Delelia Lewis, my very dear constituent, my true friend, my sister in Christ.

Everyone feels a deep sense of loss when a loved-one is cut-down in her prime, while enjoying the fullness of life. Eslyn was still filled with so much hope, so much love, so much more to give, so much more to share, and so many more dreams to fulfill.

Eslyn Lewis was still a woman in her prime; for, with the miracles of today’s health care, 56 years is still a young age. None of us expected her to be called to the Great Beyond so suddenly, without warning.

We have lived long enough to know that life is not fair, and none of us is guaranteed this precious gift of life to a ripe old age. We live everyday by the mercy of God and to him we must give constant and incessant praise, accepting his mercies and using everyday to do good, to be kind, to love, to share, and to grow.

“And what is it to work with love?” Kahlil Gibran asked.

“It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart.

It is to build a house with affection.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit.

And to know that all the blessed dead are standing about you and watching.”

We have all gathered together today to pay our final earthly respect to our loved one Eslyn Lewis of Parham Town.

No one who knew her did not enjoy her company, did not enjoy her infectious smile and laughter; did not enjoy her love for life; and did not enjoy her kindness.

Eslyn came from a large family, she had eleven brothers and sisters and she loved them all. In speaking with individuals who knew her from when she was young it was the combination of Dorsey and Nehemiah or Wissdale then Tiba as he was called, who were the clique with their Mom Miss Edna.

It is Miss Edna her Mom that one can quickly understand Eslyn personality of hard work, facing life’s obstacles, never stopping to burden oneself with why me, but living and doing the best you can with what you have. Ultimately as Eslyn, did finding total solace in her faith and commitment to Jesus Christ.

It was always good fun am told to see the different personalities as they evolve, growing up. All three were well liked; Dorsey was bubbly saucy and bold; Nehemiah who was later better known as Tiba, quickly became the philosopher, the garrulous one, the one who loved controversy and debate; Eslyn was always known as the nice one, the sweet one, the hardest working one, the most dependable one, the one with the warmest smile and belly full laughter.

Knowing of her health complaints, it was always amazing as to how Eslyn could maintain such joy of life; because truth be told, life was never easy. Eslyn and her family were not rich, or had all the comforts of life; everything she got she had to work hard to achieve.

What Eslyn learnt early in life was that happiness is more about family, friends, enjoying what you have, celebrating every accomplishment, picking yourself up whenever you are knocked down. The many trips to the hospital did not stop her from enjoying herself, from shopping, from dressing up and enjoying the latest melee and village gossip. And what is sweeter than village gossip and melee?

Eslyn had three wonderful children and from all reports this was the biggest challenge in her life. At a time when some Antiguan men did not support their children, Eslyn had a different problem, a bigger problem. Eslyn had such nice loving children that everybody wanted to take them away from her.

Her first Child Connie started it. Well Both Eslyn and his father Guyo, hardly got a chance, for Miss Ruth his paternal |grandmother decided Connie belong to her. Nobody was going to touch her Connie, Thank God they lived side by side; but even with that, Eslyn and Guyo knew they had to, as we would say, just LOU Mrs. Ruth when it came to her Connie.

Today Eslyn spirit of Calm, of caring, of helping, of loving, Mrs. Ruth  and Miss Edna Training and Guyo commitment to perfection, artistry and big game performance, have combined to produce an outstanding son. Connie is now the General Manger of Air Canada Airlines in Antigua and if you ask those in the business, he is the best airline service person in the entire country.

Eslyn had another son Travis and she had similar problems with Travis. Because his father Wingrove was so boast and proud of his strapping son, that you would have thought he was Mother and father, especially because Travis was the splitting image and built of his muscular father. Today Travis is an outstanding police Officer.

Well you can imagine No one could touch her daughter Ita. Eslyn made sure Ita was hers and hers alone; no father, no grandmother, nobody will ever compete with her and her daughter, they were in separable. Today Ita is a professional working in the offshore sector.

Only a loving mother, a loving person could do such a good job with raising her children; Eslyn did an outstanding job.

Eslyn worked at Public works for twenty seven years and I had the joy of working with her when I served as Minister of Public Works. She was a good worker, a committed worker, a dependable worker and got along well with her peers. Again she did not allow her aliments to restrict her and she played her parting building her country working in the vine yard.

 To the entire family of Eslyn, her children, her grandchildren, her relatives and friends, I want to assure you that I feel your pain. Four months ago, I lost an uncle, my mother's brother. Four months later, I still feel the emptiness, the pain, the disappointment which naturally accompanies death.

It is near-impossible not to have sighs in your heart on the passing of Eslyn Lewis, your mother, grandmother, friend and neighbour.

You may close your eyes in order to imagine Eslyn during happy times; but the tears may escape through your eyelids. You will return to your dwelling places but will find that knowledge of Eslyn's passing will remain with you, and cause the joys of your homes to be diminished.

The poet knew that these human reactions would occur; yet, he wanted us to resist those human traits at a time when death connects us brazenly to our humanity, and reminds us callously of our mortality.

Our religion also seeks to comfort us in death.

Those of us who are Christians believe that faith in the Almighty will cause us, on Judgment Day, to see the faces of our loved ones who have gone before.

We believe that to love God, to do good works, and to live a life of charity will cause God to look favorably upon us after death, and that as a reward for goodness, we will see God's face.

If this is indeed the formula for everlasting salvation, then I am compelled to believe that Eslyn Lewis has already been welcomed into the arms of her Jesus. She has seen God's face.

We believe that this community has suffered a great loss, and that all of Antigua and Barbuda is poorer as a result of her death. But, she fought the good fight, she did God's will, she pressed forward to make the best of the opportunities available for her children. She was exemplary in so many ways. She will forever be remembered.

And so, we must take her death as a sign and symbol that we do not know the hour of our final parting. It may be sudden. It may be long. It may be now, it may be later. But whatever and whenever, we must know that those who would sum up our lives must confidently say, that we worked by the sweat of our brow and with the brow of our brain to change the world. That for sure, and in sum, was true of Eslyn Lewis as it is true of all truly remarkable men and women.

In the words of the great Lebanese Prophet, Poet and Philosopher, Khalil Gibran:

But let hearts sing with me the song of Eternal Life;

Mourn not with apparel of black,

But dress in colour and rejoice with me;

Talk not of my departure with sighs in your heart;

Close your eyes and you will see me with you forevermore,

Go back to the joy of your dwellings and you will find there

That which death cannot remove from you and me.

Leave this place, for what you see here is far away in meaning

From the earthly world. Leave me.

For what it is to die, but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun

And what it is to cease breathing, but to free the breath from its restless tides, that it may rise and expand and seek God,

Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing.

And when you have reached the mountaintop then you shall begin to climb.

And when the earth shall claim your wings, then shall you truly dance.

Dance Eslyn, my dear Eslyn, dance on!

MAY HER SOUL REST IN PEACE