“She is quite sad, shocked” was the best way to put it.
Clara Brathwaite, Rihanna’s grandmother and wife of Lionel Brathwaite, was speaking for the Grammy-award winning singer as West Indians at all levels in North America expressed their condolences to the family of Barbados’ Prime Minister David Thompson.
Thompson, 48, died in office during the early hours of Saturday morning after losing a battle against pancreatic cancer.
“Rihanna’s mother spoke to her about the Prime Minister’s death and she is quite sad and shocked,” said Brathwaite, a Brooklyn resident.
“We know that the Prime Minister was very fond of Rihanna and we are feeling sad about his passing as well.
“We were all praying for him, hoping that he would recover and be able to function once again but that was not to be. God in his infinite wisdom decided to take Thompson into his Kingdom.”
Rihanna’s maternal grandmother and her husband have lived in the East Flatbush section of Brooklyn for decades and it was in their apartment, a stone’s throw from the famous Flatbush Avenue where the Bajan superstar spent summer vacations away from Barbados as a teenager and student of Combermere, often retreating to her bedroom and singing, pretending then that she was a professional rehearsing her lyrics.
“I didn’t get a chance to speak to Rihanna since Mr. Thompson’s death but her mother did,” Brathwaite explained.
“We are all quite saddened by what has happened. From the time he was sick, me and my husband would pray for him. Every morning my husband would pray
for the Prime Minister.”
As they mourned Thompson’s passing, the grandparents were thinking of a special occasion in Brooklyn when they shared the spotlight at a prominent function two years ago.
That was when the Prime Minister and Rihanna were being honoured as former students of Combermere School, an institution some people call “the University at Waterford”.
Thompson was presented with an award by the Combermere School Alumni Association in the United States, one of the oldest Barbadian organisations in North America and Rihanna was being recognised for her success as an international entertainer.
While the Prime Minister attended the function with his wife, Mara, Rihanna didn’t but her grandparents took her place at the gala dinner.
“My husband spent some time that evening at the Prime Minister’s table and chatted with him,”
Ms. Brathwaite recalled.
“Mr. Thompson said to my husband anytime you come to Barbados please come and visit me. He went to Barbados and went to visit him but he wasn’t there.”
But there is yet another reason why Thompson’s death has resonated in the Brathwaite’s Brooklyn household. It is the Prime Minister’s death at 48 years old. He was in their children’s age group.
“He is in the age group of my children and I feel what his mother is feeling at this time,” said the grandmother. “I can identify with her. I sympathise with the mother and the wife.
“After all, parents are not expected to attend their children’s funeral services and be present at their burials, it’s usually the other way around.”
Lionel Brathwaite, the agile and affable grandfather, met his wife in Guyana where they married and later moved to Barbados before coming to New York.