Dr Garvin Heer­ah

On Tues­day, I at­tend­ed the fu­ner­al of an old school­mate and dear friend, Dave Jar­dine, known to all of us sim­ply as DJ.

There was some­thing strange­ly fit­ting about that nick­name. Dave had a deep ap­pre­ci­a­tion for mu­sic in al­most every form. Whether it was a live­ly con­ver­sa­tion about a favourite song or sim­ply en­joy­ing the rhythm of life, mu­sic seemed wo­ven in­to who he was. Look­ing back now, it feels as though mu­sic be­came part of the sound­track of his jour­ney.

As I sat qui­et­ly in the ser­vice be­side an­oth­er life­long friend, Dave Pat­ter­son, or “DP”, a sober­ing thought set­tled over us with un­ex­pect­ed force.

“We’re no longer bury­ing strangers. We’re bury­ing our broth­ers… our class­mates… our close friends.”

None of us ever imag­ined this when we walked the cor­ri­dors of Queen’s Roy­al Col­lege to­geth­er. We were young then, full of con­fi­dence and con­vinced that life stretched end­less­ly be­fore us. Our great­est con­cerns were ex­ams, catch­ing a sweat, friend­ships, and dream­ing about what we would be­come. We laughed with­out re­straint, ar­gued over small goals, cel­e­brat­ed vic­to­ries, and some­how be­lieved that to­mor­row would al­ways be there.

But life has a way of qui­et­ly turn­ing pages with­out ask­ing our per­mis­sion. The script has changed. We have en­tered a dif­fer­ent sea­son of life.

One by one, fa­mil­iar faces are qui­et­ly leav­ing the pa­rade. Every fu­ner­al re­minds us that an­oth­er chap­ter of our shared his­to­ry has closed.

Dave was much more than an­oth­er fa­mil­iar face.

He was an avid sports­man who gen­uine­ly loved com­pe­ti­tion. Crick­et and foot­ball were among his great pas­sions, and like so many boys grow­ing up in Trinidad, sports be­came an­oth­er lan­guage through which friend­ships were built. Yet one of my fond­est mem­o­ries takes me be­yond the school grounds.

Dur­ing our years at QRC, some morn­ings we would walk across to the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah while the city was on­ly be­gin­ning to awak­en. The cool mist still hung over the grass as race­hors­es were be­ing ex­er­cised. Dave ab­solute­ly loved those morn­ings. His knowl­edge of the hors­es amazed many of us. He knew their names, fol­lowed their per­for­mances, spoke about their blood­lines, and could tell sto­ries about them with the en­thu­si­asm of some­one who gen­uine­ly loved the sport.

There was an­oth­er side to Dave that de­serves to be re­mem­bered.

He was not con­tent sim­ply to live in his com­mu­ni­ty; he want­ed to im­prove it. DJ had a gen­uine pas­sion for the safe­ty and well-be­ing of the res­i­dents where he lived. He be­lieved that every fam­i­ly de­served to feel se­cure and that com­mu­ni­ties flour­ish when or­di­nary cit­i­zens are pre­pared to step for­ward and make a dif­fer­ence.

Over the years, we shared many con­ver­sa­tions about crime, polic­ing, and com­mu­ni­ty safe­ty. We ex­changed ideas, de­bat­ed so­lu­tions, and ex­plored prac­ti­cal ini­tia­tives that could strength­en part­ner­ships be­tween res­i­dents and the po­lice. I was priv­i­leged to help him shape some of those ini­tia­tives, but the dri­ving force was al­ways Dave’s un­wa­ver­ing de­ter­mi­na­tion. He re­fused to ac­cept that prob­lems should sim­ply be com­plained about. He be­lieved they should be con­front­ed.

When we’re young, we sel­dom re­alise that or­di­nary mo­ments are ac­tu­al­ly ex­tra­or­di­nary ones in dis­guise.

We think there will al­ways be an­oth­er foot­ball lime, an­oth­er school re­union, an­oth­er con­ver­sa­tion, an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to say, “Let’s get to­geth­er.”

Then one day there isn’t.

Per­haps that is why fu­ner­als be­come more than mo­ments of grief. They be­come mir­rors. They force us to pause long enough to ex­am­ine our own lives.

The old­er we be­come, the more we recog­nise that life is mea­sured less by years and more by mo­ments. Ca­reers even­tu­al­ly end. Ti­tles are hand­ed to some­one else. Hous­es, ve­hi­cles, and pos­ses­sions are left be­hind. Even our achieve­ments grad­u­al­ly be­come foot­notes in some­one else’s sto­ry.

But re­la­tion­ships en­dure in re­mark­able ways.

The con­ver­sa­tions.

The shared laugh­ter.

The dif­fi­cult sea­sons through which friends qui­et­ly stood be­side us.

These be­come life’s true trea­sures.

Per­haps this is our wake-up call, not on­ly as QRC alum­ni but as fa­thers, moth­ers, broth­ers, sis­ters, neigh­bours, and friends.

Let’s not wait un­til an­oth­er fu­ner­al to see one an­oth­er again.

Let’s or­gan­ise the re­union.

Let’s make the phone call.

Let’s send the mes­sage.

Let’s vis­it the friend we’ve been talk­ing about vis­it­ing for months.

Let’s for­give old hurts that no longer mat­ter.

Let’s en­cour­age some­one who may be car­ry­ing bur­dens we know noth­ing about.

Let’s tell the peo­ple who helped shape our lives that they still mat­ter to us.

None of these things re­quire wealth. They sim­ply re­quire in­ten­tion.

Life is far short­er than we ever imag­ined as teenagers walk­ing through the school gates with our en­tire fu­ture ahead of us. Time moves in on­ly one di­rec­tion, and none of us knows how many chap­ters re­main in our own sto­ry.

There is an old say­ing that peo­ple die twice: once when they take their fi­nal breath, and again when their name is spo­ken for the last time. If that is true, then friends like Dave nev­er tru­ly dis­ap­pear. They live on in every shared mem­o­ry, every sto­ry re­told with laugh­ter, every les­son re­mem­bered, and every life they touched.

Yes­ter­day we laid our broth­er to rest.

To­day we ho­n­our his mem­o­ry by liv­ing dif­fer­ent­ly.

May we val­ue peo­ple more than pos­ses­sions, re­la­tion­ships more than recog­ni­tion, and shared mo­ments more than busy sched­ules.

Rest peace­ful­ly, DJ.

Thank you for your friend­ship.

Thank you for the laugh­ter.

Thank you for the mem­o­ries of crick­et, foot­ball, misty morn­ings at the Sa­van­nah, and the sim­ple joy of grow­ing up to­geth­er.

To every read­er, whether you knew Dave or not, per­haps this is your gen­tle re­minder:

Reach out to some­one to­day.

Re­new a friend­ship.

Say the words that have been wait­ing too long to be spo­ken.

Be­cause to­mor­row is promised to no one, but to­day is still a gift.

Let us trea­sure one an­oth­er while we still can.