Yvonne Webb

There was not an emp­ty pew in­side the St Bene­dict's Ro­man Catholic Church, La Ro­maine, yes­ter­day as mourn­ers turned out in their hun­dreds to bid farewell to the late box­ing star Jizelle Sa­landy. Ad­di­tion­al chairs had to be brought in and a tent was erect­ed out­side the build­ing, but they were not enough. Af­ter the ser­vice, a som­bre Olympic dou­ble sil­ver medal­list and ac­ci­dent sur­vivor Richard Thomp­son stood over the cas­ket bear­ing Sa­landy's body decked in box­ing gear in the na­tion­al colours. In­side the church, a few mo­ments be­fore, singer Natasha Bab­wah en­sured there were no dry eyes when she sang Wind Be­neath My Wings.

The friend that Sa­landy dropped off at the air­port be­fore the fa­tal ac­ci­dent on Sun­day could bare­ly con­tain her­self as the singer sang "Fly Jizelle, fly high." But, Ro­man Catholic Priest Fa­ther David Khan told the con­gre­ga­tion not to let their hearts be trou­bled. Ad­dress­ing the gath­er­ing which in­clud­ed Pres­i­dent George Maxwell and his wife Dr Jean Ramjohn Richards, Khan said they should not view her pass­ing as an an­ni­hi­la­tion or a dis­as­ter. "This is the work of God. God sent her to be­come what she is to­day," he said. "Some say her life was cut short; I will not say that. I think she lived a com­plete life. God brought her to the part where she reached per­fec­tion in life and now He is wel­com­ing her in­to his heav­en­ly king­dom," he added.

The Priest de­scribed Sa­landy, 21, who died as a re­sult of in­juries sus­tained in a ve­hic­u­lar ac­ci­dent on Sun­day, as a woman of virtue. He said she stood out not be­cause of her un­de­feat­ed box­ing cham­pi­onship, but be­cause of how she lived. He re­mind­ed the con­gre­ga­tion of her hum­ble be­gin­nings and the loss of her moth­er at an ear­ly age. He said in spite of her tribu­la­tions, she rose to suc­cess, but nev­er for­got where she came from and al­ways reached out to help oth­ers over­come their or­deals. Khan al­so cau­tioned against the dan­gers of speed­ing on the na­tions roads. He al­so prayed for the speedy re­cov­ery of her friend, foot­baller Tamar Wat­son, who was se­ri­ous­ly in­jured in the ac­ci­dent.

Ca­lyp­son­ian De Fos­to who per­formed a spe­cial­ly com­posed song Could We Rise Again, al­so touched on the sore point. "Tell young peo­ple what they do­ing... be care­ful when dri­ving. Don't sleep be­hind the steer­ing." Sa­landy's man­ag­er Buxo Potts who eu­lo­gised the champ said the young box­er had a des­ig­nat­ed dri­ver, but she was able to per­suade him in­to giv­ing her the keys to the ve­hi­cle on Sun­day. Potts agreed with the priest that Sa­landy was put on this earth for a spe­cial pur­pose.