An abundance of moving tributes for beloved matriarch
Published:Tuesday | February 9, 2016 | 6:23 PMPaul H. Williams
BULL SAVANNAH, St Elizabeth:
If praises and adorations from her family and relatives could have brought back Inez May Wright to life, they certainly would have on Sunday, January 24, inside the Bull Savannah Church of Christ in St Elizabeth.
It was the thanksgiving service for the life of the former dressmaker and farmer, and the glowing and moving tributes were in abundance for the woman who gave birth to seven children and raised four more.
The space in the church was full to capacity, and a big section was occupied by her family and relatives, many of whom were overwhelmed by the poignancy of the moment. She lived a full and productive life, dying at the ripe age of 91, but her passing was no less heart-rending.
She was remembered by her grandson, Dr Marcus Lee, as "a woman of good heart", who was "very neighbourly", "kind" and "compassionate". "I say to you, mommy, my aunts, my uncles, my granduncles, my cousins, and to the friends of mama, draw your strength from the fact that mama was a rock planted there for our stability, the centrepiece to which we retreat for comfort, for calm and for rejuvenation," Dr Lee remarked.
To her nephew, Errol Wright, his "auntie/mother" was "a stalwart", "a gem", "a pearl" and "a legend". Wright said he was privileged to have two mothers, Inez Wright being one of them. "As such, I have many brothers and sisters. Because of this I know what it is to be loved and to love, what it is to be cared for and to care ... I had the benefits of both worlds," he told the gathering.
MATRIARCH
Shayne Fairman, one of the grandsons Inez Wright raised, was so overcome with grief that he couldn't read the tribute he wrote, but he stood by her side, as his female friend read about the woman who schooled him for seven years at Munro College, the matriarch who took him in when he was a "little skinny boy" "with sores all over his skin and nose ever running".
"Above being remembered for being a good and strong woman, all I would like is for people to remember mama, who was our living legend ... Even more epic is that you shaped a boy who had dreams into a man ... . I know you were silently happy with my choices and decisions to settle down," Michelle Duggan said on behalf of Shayne Fairman.
"Mama lives on in our heads and hearts, and no one can stop mama as mama is ours, all in all, and our everything," Denville Wright said.
Inez May Wright was born in Cuba on November 27, 1924, and died on Tuesday, December 29, 2015.