Tessa Chaderton-Shaw

Dear Mrs. Chaderton, Maria, Lynda, Erica & family,

Please accept my heartfelt condolences on the passing of your dear daughter and sibling, Tessa.

Words cannot describe the shock and befuddlement I feel on learning of the passing of my dear friend Tessa. As you well know, Tessa and I go back many decades to Hilltop Preparatory school. I can say without hesitation that Tessa was a guiding light for me during my formative years. I fondly recall meeting Tessa at the library on Saturdays, based on her encouragement, to study for my O'level exams without distractions. Such was her influence and motivation that I persevered with my studies and looked up to her as a template for excellence. Throughout the years, I followed Tessa's remarkable ascension from her stellar academic success at McGill University to her subsequent leadership at the National Council on Substance Abuse. I vividly remember Tessa telling me about the challenges of such a prominent position and her resolute intention to make a tangible difference in people's lives through the delivery of well formulated, measurable and sustainable programmes. The proof of the pudding was, indeed, the length of her tenure at the helm and the recognizability and public sensibilization of the meticulously curated programmes. In short, Tessa was the architect of her own success and adhered to a tried and trusted set of core values.

I also had the opportunity to see Tessa when she came to Lausanne, Switzerland for a conference. I picked her up from Geneva airport and dropped her off at the hotel. Whilst checking in at the hotel reception, I was prepared to act as her interlocutor. However, Tessa left me slacked-jawed by engaging with the receptionist in mellifluous French. To say I was surprised is an understatement as I knew Tessa had studied French, but I was unaware that she retained such conversational fluency without the benefit of regular practise in Barbados. Earlier this year, I mentioned that I visited Madrid and Tessa rattled off some fluent Spanish phrases evidencing her impressive power of recall..

To say that I am disoriented belies my true sentiments. I have tried to rationalise her passing but feel bereft of answers as I am sure you all do. I remember someone in Geneva telling me a while back that a measure of one's life expectancy is to add your parents' age and divide by two. I know this metric is overly simplistic, but I never in a month of Sundays imagined that Tessa would leave this mortal plane at the abbreviated age of 66 years old.

Nevertheless, I want to underscore how fortunate I was to have met Tessa and maintained contact with her over several decades, which has brought a reawakened consciousness of time's relentless passage and amazement of where all the years had gone. I distinctly remember visiting Tessa with my family from Switzerland at her house in Mt Wilton marveling at the beautifully crafted interior and the lush verdant garden bedecked in some of the most radiant tropical plants, which was so evocative of her linearity and inner beauty.

Dearest Tessa, you have now traversed the celestial Rubicon. I bid you farewell and remain assured that you will be welcomed into the heavenly realm where your own Edenic pocket of beauty and serenity beckons.

Nicholas Campbell
email: nicholascampbell255@yahoo.com