If you want to get anywhere in this world, you must have a sound education.”
Andrazine Anthony truly believed this, although her own education had been modest. Often she had reminded her offspring that learning was everything; in particular her son who was destined to be our prime minister although his mother probably never imagined this.
Her words struck a chord with the young Kenny Anthony. At any rate, so the story goes. Kenny Anthony’s mother passed away on Tuesday, October 1 at about 6 a.m. at the Tapion Hospital. She was less than two months short of her 94th birthday. Condolences have been pouring in from local and regional government officials, as well as from the general public.
On Tuesday the St Lucia Labour Party released an official statement:
“It is with profound sadness that we have learnt of the passing of Ms Lucy Andrazine Anthony, Andraz, as she was affectionately known, had been ailing for a short period before her passing.”
Andrazine was described as a “tower of strength” for her children and Prime Minister Anthony’s “greatest source of inspiration.”
“Indeed, following the Labour Party’s triumph at the 1997 elections, even at the ripe age of 78 she called her son and informed him that she would be attending his swearing-in as Prime Minister which was scheduled for the 24 May 1997, and she did just that,” the release stated. “The leadership and membership of the Saint Lucia Labour Party say to the Prime Minister and his family, in the words of MacLeod, “we picture death as coming to destroy, let us rather picture Christ as coming to save. We think of death as ending, let us rather think of life as beginning. We think of losing but let us instead think of gaining. We think of going away but let us think instead of arriving. And as the voice of death whispers ‘you must go from earth’ let us hear the voice of God saying ‘you are but coming to Me!”
Rick Wayne’s “Lapses and Infelicities” takes readers back in time, when the prime minister’s mother had reared cows, goats, sheep and pigs.
“Whenever the need arose, she sold one of the animals and used the money to pay for her children’s clothes, schoolbooks, and other necessities,” Wayne writes, and nothing is more apparent here than her unconditional love for her children.
“Lapses” also touches on Andrazine’s own humble beginnings; how she raised her family in the southern community of River Doree. The writer also underscores the tough decision Andrazine had made when she allowed the young Kenny Anthony to go off to St Vincent to live with people she trusted though she never knew them personally.
“While it was undeniably true,” writes Wayne, “is that while St Vincent did much for the pubescent Kenny Anthony’s mind, after four years the boy was lonely and homesick. After several distress calls from St Vincent, Andrazine finally returned her son to his Rivee Doree roots in 1963.”
A funeral date has not yet been made announced.
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