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Thursday, January 12, 2012

In Memoriam

Dr. Rex Williams


Rex in peace my brother. From Kensington Court to Grammar School; to Jamaica, London and Birmingham. Sadly, I never visited you in South Africa. From Rising Sun Steel Band to fete on campus and off campus. You always opened your heart to the music and the love that true friends share.

I cannot recall you been constitutively angry, even in ('nuff) argument, which almost always ended with a laugh, or a bet, or both.

It is strikingly strange how memories of you, in the twinkling of a tear-drop, travel faster than the speed of light when the sound of death flashes from South Africa to Antigua and Barbuda. It must be some sign of extra-special relativity. Whenever we meet, I always ask you when will you come home. And now you answer me for real (“fu tru”).

But when it is all said and done, and dusted, and the ashes call you back, I want to remember you through the immortality of memories. As Sir Derek Walcott said in reference to calypsonian Spoiler, and so to you I will: I decompose, but I composing still. Rex in peace, my brother. Rex, in peace.

Si (Dr. Lester Simon)