THERE?WILL?BE?NO?PARANG at Mapps this Christmas.
We stood talking on the entrance steps to his sprawling St Philip home last December 25 night; he was celebrating his 48th birthday – his last. Suddenly, he said measuredly and in a whisper above the din and the deejay: “All we need now is some parang. You think next year you could get Lowdown to come? And you would bring the banjo?”
Without a thought I plunged into the answer.
“Of course, Richard would be happy to come.
He has a passion for music.”
“I just love parang,” David Thompson intoned.
A promise is a promise – if the Almighty will let you keep it. Richard Lowdown Hoad will be learning for the first time today that I committed him to Thompy. And, come to think of it, it is not so much because Lowdown loves playing the parang music, but that he owes David.
In 2008 at a belated birthday party of mine, Lowdown sat and supped with David at the table of my disciples: breaking fish cakes and drinking wine. Well, the latter item is metaphorical; the Prime Minister sipped on vodka, Lowdown on the ubiquitous Coke.
It was a scene from the seldom – if ever – portrayed Paradisaical circumstance of goat farmer among lawyers and doctors and others – and one humble journalist.
You might recall the talk that Lowdown had for the Prime Minister afterward. He wrote of our leader consuming fish cakes via napkin and fork, as varied pairs of boobies plumped themselves up in attendance – or something to that effect.
Thompy was known to take these things in stride; no wonder he would want to invite Lowdown to his house. And, in one of his many BlackBerry emails he would remind me.
Hi, Ridley,
Yes, we are fine. Happy New Year to you! And family.
I hope all is well with you.
We travelled on 27th to Antigua and St Kitts and returned yesterday. We had a good time and it was very relaxing.
We need some parang at Mapps!
All the best.
David
David Thompson, over the years we grew to be closer friends, I found to be caring and thoughtful – and committed to those he loved. The cut and thrust nature of politics aside, there was a welling humanity in David that, if you took the time, you would find. It was the consummate politician in him that sometimes masked it.
David Thompson was passionate about the appropriate upbringing of the nation’s children and about the proper environment in which they should be nurtured. Families First was one signal development of this. We discussed it often. As to his own children, he loved his daughters dearly and spoke regularly to me of “the girls”.
He would empathise with my doting over my own Penney Adaiah. And when it was do or die for her to have a cochlear implantation in Miami last year, he had comforting words for me throughout my month of anxiety. When I emailed him at the end of it that Adaiah’s unnerving invasive surgery had been a success, he immediately texted:
I am relieved to hear about Adaiah . . . .
And I thought I was the worried one!
Friends reciprocate – if Nature would tie not their hands. As David battled his “serious” illness, I helplessly, and obviously futilely, wished and willed. All my own prayers and supplications would go blowing in the wind . . . as would his. God alone knows why.
I looked on stunned as this titan of a man in the last three months sought to abate my anguish over him in the midst of his own silent agony.
His very last text to me would be:
Ridley,
As I said before, it’s serious. Prayer and supplication day by day can achieve miracles.
David.
Regrettably, the miracles we hoped for never came – and never will!
