Rhon­da Karim de­liv­ered an emo­tion­al trib­ute yes­ter­day as she spoke about the self­less na­ture of her fa­ther, for­mer min­is­ter and MP Fazal Karim, who was a ded­i­cat­ed fam­i­ly man.

“My dad had the abil­i­ty to fill a whole room just by his pres­ence. Dad­dy, I owe every­thing to you. I will miss you more than life it­self, but I find com­fort in the fact that you don’t have to strug­gle any­more. You fought a good fight and on­ly held on be­cause of us, your fam­i­ly. I have al­ways cher­ished you, but to­day I ho­n­our you,” Rhon­da said as she broke down in tears.

Karim’s three chil­dren de­liv­ered the eu­lo­gy dur­ing the fu­ner­al ser­vices which were held at their moth­er’s church, Greater Love Chris­t­ian Cen­tre and at the Cara­pichaima mosque, Wa­ter­loo Road, where the Janaazah (Is­lam­ic fu­ner­al last rites) was read.

Karim’s wid­ow, Apos­tle Judy Karim, ex­plained that be­cause her hus­band was her great­est sup­port and cheer­leader, he had re­quest­ed be­fore he died that a fu­ner­al ser­vice be al­so held at her church.

Karim’s chil­dren, Rhon­da, Ria and Rhion, spoke of his ed­u­ca­tion and how their fa­ther had strong fam­i­ly val­ues. They said he took the role of a fa­ther, hus­band and grand­fa­ther se­ri­ous­ly.

Sev­er­al peo­ple from all walks of life came to say their good­byes to a man whose mis­sion was en­cour­ag­ing oth­ers to learn.

Among those pay­ing their re­spects to Karim were Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Dr Tim Gopeesingh, Rudy In­dars­ingh, Chan­dresh Shar­ma, Bar­ry Padarath and Anil Robert.

Min­is­ter of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment Pen­ne­lope Beck­les was al­so in at­ten­dance.

Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein paid trib­ute to Karim. He said they grew up in Cara­pichaima and Karim was al­ways hum­ble.

“He was a down-to-earth per­son. Spe­cial per­son, I would say, in show­ing the way for­ward for hu­mil­i­ty in this coun­try. In this of­fice that we hold is very tem­po­rary, you nev­er know what will hap­pen that you will have to demit of­fice and he showed hu­mil­i­ty when he left of­fice. He was a role mod­el for a lot of peo­ple in this coun­try,” Ho­sein said.

Mean­while, Karim’s for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship col­league Win­ston Dook­er­an re­mem­bered him for his pop­u­lar quotes and phras­es.

“I quot­ed him in one of my books that I just pub­lished be­cause he was a very pro­found per­son. He had deep in­sights in­to pub­lic pol­i­cy is­sues and that man­i­fest­ed in his suc­cess­ful tenure as a min­is­ter. As a per­son he was an ex­tra­or­di­nar­i­ly hum­ble per­son and I re­al­ly came here be­cause of all that.”

Karim was buried at the Wa­ter­loo Is­lam­ic Ceme­tery.

He died on Mon­day morn­ing peace­ful­ly at his home af­ter bat­tling can­cer for years.