Dear Editor,
These past several days I have been overcome with a sense of desolation, and have been grappling with an inadequacy to find words to explain my delinquency in not being present to share with those bereaved at the passing of my life-long friend John Ramessar.
Contrary to my wont, I scanned the TV death announcements last Thursday evening, August 13, 2009, to learn shockingly that John had passed away and was to be cremated the very next day. My decision to participate in the service at Brickdam Cathedral to celebrate his life was frustrated by an earlier commitment to a meeting at exactly the same ten o’clock hour with a visiting official from overseas – just half a block away from the ‘celebration.’ As it turned out the meeting started too late and when, at its end, I scrambled to get to pay my respects to my friend, ‘celebrants’ were already exiting the doors of the cathedral.
I cursed my selfishness, as it was not the only time that I had allowed my preoccupations to defer earlier good intentions to visit John during his long indisposition. I bemoaned my desertion of a cherished friendship which started long ago as antagonists on the cricket field – John batting for the East Indian Cricket Club, and I bowling for Queen’s College and then the Malteenoes Sports Club. Our relationship cemented when respectively we were junior representatives of Demerara Company and Bookers Sugar Estates – sugar in the blood.
Soon after, when I was charged with the responsibility for administering the incipient small cane farming development project promoted jointly by the two sugar companies, our antagonisms were translated into formal discourse at the National Cane Farming Committee, established by statute to represent the interests of partners in a new industry initiative. John had become a cane farmer, and it was no accident that the cane farmers’ cooperative which he formed was named after Good Samaritan, located on the East Bank, Berbice.
The Good Samaritan Cooperative Cane Framers’ Cooperative Society was one of the first groups of cane farmers registered with the then Cane Farming Development Corporation, promoted by the sugar companies to fund small cane farming across the estates. The society started with 900 acres – supplying Rose Hall Estate with cane. Over time the cultivation gradually reduced to something like 300 acres.
John himself was a Samaritan. His was a generosity I enjoyed without being in any way officially compromised. Business discussions never intruded on our personal relationship. He was a legendary host, and I enjoyed his largesse as much as I did his company.
At one or more of these events I met several notable persons, but his most important bequeathal was attorney-at-law Jailall Kissoon, whom I promptly searched for on the evening of the announcement of John’s passing. Jai has since staunchly filled the spiritual gap that time and distance would appear to have placed between me and our mutual friend. So it was with some relief that I learnt that Jai had witnessed the cremation of John’s body, on Friday, August 14, 2009. I felt confident that I was represented by his presence.
Time once more has slipped by, leaving only this recourse to record a final debt of gratitude to an indefatigably Good Samaritan.
With deepest condolences to all the bereaved, and particularly to those whom I knew better, Abie, his son, and the long lasting Chand.
Yours faithfully,
Earl John
