Minister of Public Infrastructure, Posts, Urban Development, and Transport, the Hon Ian Patches Liburd, has thanked the entire country for the support it has given him and his family following the untimely death of his son Mikhail Iannick ‘Mitch’ Liburd who was laid to rest on Tuesday September 11.
“I can’t really express the way I feel about the pour of kind sentiments that were expressed – the moral support demonstrated by all and sundry,” said Hon Liburd at the Springfield cemetery after the interment of the mortal remains of his son. Hundreds of mourners led by the Governor General His Excellency Sir Tapley Seaton, Prime Minister Dr the Hon Timothy, and his Cabinet colleagues comforted the family, including the mother of the deceased Ms Iris Williams.
“I just want to say that, first of all, I thank Almighty God,” said Hon Liburd. “I thank the people of my constituency for their outpouring support, and in fact the people of the country for the support that they have given to me and my family and I do not know how I will repay them. But one way to do so is to continue doing the things I am doing and doing things that are right in the sight of the Lord.”
Paying tribute to his son at the funeral service, which was held at the Zion Moravian Church in Basseterre and officiated by Rev Hilton Joseph, the grieving father thanked the Almighty God for giving him a son whom he said was his hero. “Mitch was a lively guy, full of life and full of fun,” stated the Hon Liburd.
“The famous Jimmy Cliff said ‘who feels it knows it’,” observed the Hon Liburd. “I may cry – crying is part of it – but I am gonna live and live for his memory because one thing that Mikhail always said to me as young as he was as my son, he always felt he should take of me and he always told me ‘Papa, be strong’,”.
He ended by saying: “So I am going to be strong for him and strong for my people and strong for the world because I am at peace. I am at peace with my God, I am at peace with the world, I am at peace with myself and that is where I get my strength from. So I say thanks to all and sundry.”
At the church service Prime Minister Dr the Hon Timothy Harris read the New Testament scripture from John 14:1-6, and in paying tribute he praised his Cabinet colleague for showing strength noting that the previous night (Monday September 10) he was a guest of Hon Liburd on his radio talk show ‘Straight Talk’ on WINN FM.
“I went last night (to the Straight Talk show) because I knew despite the outward appearances, Ian was a broken man,” said Dr Harris. “He does not show much of that but when the normal chronology of life is disturbed it brings all the trauma of life on. In the natural sequence of things ordained, it should be that the son should inter the mortal remains of the father and the mother – today we are having the reverse.”
Referring to the scriptures where a grieving mother had said that all was well, Prime Minister Harris said: “My wish for my colleague Ian and for Iris, and all the other siblings, loved ones and friends of Mikhail it is that soon, and very soon, they too can say, notwithstanding this moment of tragedy, ‘it is well’.”