Tribute to Mildred Agatha Lewis Abbott By Hon. Asot Michael

TRIBUTE BY
THE HONOROABLE ASOT A. MICHAEL, M.P
AT
THE FUNERAL FOR
MILDRED AGATHA LEWIS ABBOTT
ON
WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 21^ST 2011
AT
ST. ANDREWS’ ANGLICAN CHURCH

“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 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 Mildred Agatha Lewis Abbott, a very dear friend of my family, our comrade, our true friend, our sister in Christ.

I take this opportunity to express the sympathies of the Antigua and Barbuda Labour Party and the Constituency of St. Peter’s to the Abbott family. I also express the sympathies of the entire Michael family and, of course my own sympathies on the passing of Comrade Mildred Abbott. She will be sorely missed by all.

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

Khalil Gibran, one of my favourite poets, wrote the following about death:

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 dwelling and you will find there
that which death cannot remove from you and me.

It is near-impossible not to have sighs in your heart on the passing of Mildred Abbott, your mother, grandmother, friend and neighbor.

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

The poet knew that theses 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 that 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 Mildred Abbott has already been welcomed into the arms of her Jesus. She has seen God’s face.

God blessed her during her lifetime with many traits, which we collectively call personality. One of her compelling personality traits was her determination to follow her own heart, her own desires, to make her own choices. Often, this unyielding strength is seen as being “stubborn.”

No-one refers to Jobe, the prophet, as being stubborn. We say that he had faith. Despite all adversity and what appears to be evidence to the contrary, Jobe would persist in his determination to serve the living God.

Manty possessed the strength of a Jobe. The faith of a Jobe. The determination of a Jobe.

Mrs. Mildred Abbott desire to see her children succeed in life sprang from unyielding faith in the possibility of success. I believe that she learned the possibilities from the trade union movement that was led by Vere Cornwall Bird and Comrade Joseph Myers, and Donald Sheppard, and Joseph Lawrence, Lionel Hurst and Denfield Hurst and all those who served the people of this country.

Equally interesting was her colorful account of the role of the AT&LU and leadership of Sir V. C. Bird, Father of the Nation, in bringing relief and hope to workers and the transformation of Antigua and Barbuda.

I can almost hear her now recounting how Sir V. C Bird entered and the other labor leaders back then  worked fearless and tirelessly to secure better wages and other benefits for the workers. She was eternally grateful for their effort and leadership.

To the very end she committed herself to the Antigua Labor Party and even though she was ill she attended all the functions of the party. That is the type of commitment that we need today.

When Mildred was an infant, born on March 20^th 1927, sugarcane and cotton were all around us. Antigua and Barbuda was one huge patchwork of sugarcane and cotton plantations. Poverty was also everywhere, since wages and salaries were meager. Her parents were poor farmers. 

Mildred’s parents could only pray that she might have an opportunity at moving beyond Primary School. Mildred’s future was limited by the opportunities available then.

The transformation of Antigua and Barbuda from a place of extreme poverty to a modern developing island-state began in the earnest after 1976. The transformative years brought greater wealth and greater opportunities. Mildred wished for her children to make the best of the opportunities. And they did!

Shaped by those experiences, Mildred became a mother, and mentor to just about every child in the Cedar Grove Community and her insistence on education reverberated throughout the community. She was always quick to offer advice and encouragement to those with whom she came into contact. Something to eat was equally always available to any child who would stop by………..and believe me, there were many.

The value of a person’s life to her family, community or nation is often not measureable until the moment of death. Human culture, the world over, has a tendency to focus on valued human traits at the moment of death. Manty is no exception. We remember her energy and her forthrightness, her strength and determination, and will remember her unswerving commitment to the Cedar Grove, Community.

Mildred Abbott lived a simple life with very few modern amenities; she was very collective even to her last hours; she was a no-nonsense woman who stood by what she believed in. She loved telling old stories and was a regular joker.

She loved all her children and grandchildren; Jerome, Boris, Gus, Joan, Beverly, Dianne, Wendy and Larry.

She also loved her extended family Ashfield Nicholas, and the Honorable Lester Bird and to who she was the grandmother to their siblings. She lifted herself up by her own bootstraps together with her husband who was known as Victor “Tombstone” Abbott.

Her political conviction was strong. Although she suffered for it, she was not afraid to stand up for what she believed in. She believed in justice and would hurt deep inside at any signs of injustice, greed or corruption. She was fearless and believed in fair-play and was never intimidated by victimization.

Today, as we grieve over Mildred’s passing, we recall the strength, the determination, the faith, the love, the unyielding dedication to her family, and their love for her. We recall her struggles, her victories, her many successes.

We believe that this community has suffered a great loss. 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.

May God continue to bless her and keep her, and may his face shine upon her, and be generous unto her. May he lift up his countenance upon her and give her peace, now and forever.

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 Mildred Agatha Lewis Abbott 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;

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 Mildred  my dear Mildred  dance on!

May her Soul Rest In Peace.