De­spite the grief of los­ing her fa­ther, 12-year-old Ariel­la Roop­nar­ine has ex­celled in the Sec­ondary En­trance As­sess­ment ex­am­i­na­tion, se­cur­ing her first choice at the Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School.

Ariel­la, a for­mer Sevil­la Pri­vate Pri­ma­ry School pupil who was fea­tured by Guardian Me­dia for her ex­cel­lent art­work, cel­e­brat­ed her SEA achieve­ment last night with a spe­cial fam­i­ly din­ner.

In an ex­clu­sive in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia, moth­er Sari­ta Roop­nar­ine said she was thrilled with her daugh­ter’s grades.

“We are very proud of her. She worked hard and was ded­i­cat­ed. She had a great bal­ance be­tween her aca­d­e­m­ic and leisure time and she was still able to fo­cus on her art,” Sari­ta said.

Sari­ta said their lives had been turned top­sy-turvy when her hus­band, Dr Richard Roop­nar­ine, died sud­den­ly three years ago af­ter a failed sur­gi­cal op­er­a­tion.

“Get­ting the SEA re­sult was a re­al­ly bit­ter­sweet mo­ment. The one per­son who would have equal­ly shared my ap­pre­hen­sion, my anx­i­ety and joy was miss­ing and to­day has re­mind­ed me there is al­ways go­ing to be that void. That one per­son, my hus­band, who wouldn’t be there to share in the joy,” Sari­ta said.

She ex­plained that while the grief was still in their hearts, Ariel­la’s ac­com­plish­ment was in­spi­ra­tional.

She said for those stu­dents who were heart­bro­ken with grief, there is still hope for suc­cess and joy.

“I be­lieve that par­ents need to let chil­dren ex­plore their in­ter­ests. Ex­pose them to as many ex­tracur­ric­u­lar fields as pos­si­ble to find what­ev­er they en­joy do­ing. Once you ex­pose them to that and then let them pick what they like, they will be hap­py,” she said.

She added that faith had a lot to do with her daugh­ter’s suc­cess.

“My daugh­ter’s faith in God is very strong. She has been pray­ing. This has strength­ened her be­lief that there is a God and he does look out for her,” Sari­ta said.

The ex­u­ber­ant moth­er said dur­ing the SEA prepa­ra­tion, she some­times got wor­ried for her daugh­ter.

“I was wor­ried be­cause she was spend­ing hours on a paint­ing for a com­pe­ti­tion with the Na­tion­al Coun­cil for In­di­an Cul­ture and I felt that these hours could have been spent with her SEA re­vi­sion, but then I de­cid­ed to leave her to re­lax with her art. Two weeks ago, she won that NCIC com­pe­ti­tion,” Sari­ta re­vealed.

She said de­spite her wor­ries, she was con­fi­dent in her daugh­ter’s abil­i­ties.

But Ariel­la told Guardian Me­dia that her art­work was how she re­laxed from the stress of the ap­proach­ing SEA ex­am.

“I was hap­py that I have art be­cause that was my way of re­lax­ing. I would spend time study­ing but it is al­so im­por­tant to find a hob­by that you can en­joy,” Ariel­la said.

She added, “I am look­ing for­ward to Na­pari­ma, I am ex­cit­ed about the ac­tiv­i­ties I will do there.”

Some of Ariel­la’s ex­tra­or­di­nary art­work is now be­ing sold abroad.