I was shocked by a WhatsApp note from a friend abroad, on July 27, that Her Excellency Ambassador to CARICOM and the OECS Elma Gene Isaac “has died”.
It hit me so hard that, as per usual, my immediate response was to put pen to paper, quickly fingering an article titled: ‘Ambassador Elma Gene Isaac In 500 Words’.
I called and messaged sympathy notes to others who were with us in MoBay and senior members of her staff Alexandra Aurelien and Katzlyn Samson.
But an even worse shock would come the next morning, when someone who would know called to tell me she was alive – as she put it: “Stop spreading that rumour… Ambassador is alive… And what she needs is our prayers…” – and I promised to pray for her too…
It would turn out that Ambassador suffered an extremely unhealthy relapse and remained incommunicable for a few days, before eventually departing on the afternoon of July 30.
Understandably, when I got the second set of WhatsApp messages, I was sceptical and contacted her office for confirmation.
However, while awaiting official or formal confirmation (on the morning of July 31), I contemplated (yet again) on how the speed of information sharing is something not-to-be taken-for-granted by users of IT devices today.
Every day we get examples of misuse and abuse of the wonders of our AI devices, which is no-less than those who choose to use and abuse (For Bad) other instruments that can also be used For Good – like knives and guns, that can be used to cut fruit, bread and butter, or for protection, respectively.
I mean, just imagine the effect on the ambassador’s family and friends to have been seeing and hearing messages of her death and offering sympathetic comments while she was still-alive and holding-on for Dear Life.
It’s just like losing a mom, dad or sibling — and just keeping getting calls all-day-long, with the same rewind: ‘Sorry to hear…’, ‘Accept my sympathy…’ and ‘How did it happen?’
Callers and inquirers may feel they’re doing good, but until it happens to you or comes close to home, we don’t realize we may be adding to the distressed person’s trauma.
It’s like having a relative sick for some time and after the passing, people would say the grieving family “should have expected that…”
As someone who lost seven closest relatives (including wife, uncle, brother, sister-in-law and cousin) I know (multiple-times-over) what it is to have to face the grim realities of losing a loved one.
Those of my generation (and older) leaving us today leave behind fears about “Who next?” and the everlasting question “When will be my turn?”
Of course, none are answerable questions, but we still ask, more out of abundant fear of the unknown than expectation that when our turn comes, everyone else will know but us.
But, lest I continue to appropriately digress, back to my ‘500 words’ about the ambassador in the following tribute written much-too-early, but still nonetheless fitting-enough (I hope) to be shared…
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Ambassador Isaac and I last met during the 49th CARICOM Summit in Montego Bay, Jamaica (July 6 to 8), where I was part of the Saint Lucia delegation led by External Affairs Minister Alva Baptiste, also including Protocol Officer Shantelle Polius from the Ministry and Katzlyn Samson of the Office of the Ambassador and the Regional Integration Unit.
I’ve had a long 12-year association with the Ambassador, her office, the RIU and staff, as the National Reparations Committee (NRC) – from its inception in 2013 with then Ambassador June Soomer in the post — reports annually to the Office of the Prime Minister through her office.
The NRC was also consulted every year by the RIU, ahead of every CARICOM Summit, to provide the Prime Minister, Ambassador and the Saint Lucia delegation with necessary updates on its work during the previous year.
The NRC also regularly contributed to RIU’s quarterly newsletter.
My first CARICOM Summit as a Saint Lucia delegate was with Prime Minister Dr Kenny D. Anthony in Nassau, The Bahamas in 2001 and before that I covered almost all, either in person or from online distance, but Jamaica in July was my first time in a delegation that included her.
Ambassador Isaac knew all the leaders and officials attending the MoBay summit; and, well-schooled in how CARICOM diplomacy works, she quietly guided me through some of the unknowns of its conference culture, including appearances and disappearances of agenda items and ways Heads can capture topics through location of discussion.
In relation to an expectation I stated in an article I wrote the weekend ahead of the summit, Her Excellency also told me if there was to be a report to ARICOM on the Nigerian President’s visit and meeting with OECS leaders, “As host, the prime minister would probably have been here…”
Quiet but resolute, the Ambassador carried her accumulated wealth of experience and institutional memory with graceful ease, riding rough regional diplomatic waves like a silver surfer on any ocean in the world of international relations.
Her humanism came to the fore several times in MoBay, especially after a member of the delegation suffered a mis-step of a mishap — and her pain-faced sitting-through hours of plenaries and caucus meetings, as accepted par for this course.
The island has lost a consummate diplomat who knew her onions and other essential ingredients to ensure diplomacy was what it is — quiet and effective, steady and consistent, always looking-ahead before the next dawn and seeing yesterday as part of yesteryear.
Her shoes will be hard to fill, but her legacy will be easy to follow for the simplicity of her effective approach.
May she rest in perfect peace in that other world we’ll all head-to when the time comes to cash-in our non-expiring and non-refundable one-way tickets, as we wait in life’s departure lounge for our gate number and boarding time for that final flight to The Great Beyond!