SASCHA WIL­SON

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­son@guardian.co.tt

Matthew Chan­cel­lor would not on­ly light up a room but up­lift the spir­its of every­one around him.

This qual­i­ty was re­called by Mea­gan Rush-Charles, man­ag­er of the Mon­trose Sub­way branch where he worked.

She re­flect­ed on his play­ful, charm­ing de­meanour and re­vealed one of his nick­names at work was “sweet­man” dur­ing his fu­ner­al ser­vice yes­ter­day in Tabaquite.

Rush-Charles was among hun­dreds of col­leagues, vil­lagers, friends and well-wish­ers who paid their re­spects to Chan­cel­lor, four days af­ter he was gunned down in the com­mu­ni­ty.

Fol­low­ing out­cry and out­rage by the com­mu­ni­ty over his mur­der and crime in the area, act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Ju­nior Ben­jamin promised that next week the Bras­so Po­lice Sta­tion would be re­opened. The sta­tion was closed in No­vem­ber 2020 and was be­ing used by oth­er units of the TTPS.

De­liv­er­ing the eu­lo­gy at the packed Tabaquite Open Bible Church, his cousin Jes­si­ca Gore, said Chan­cel­lor was a bea­con of light in their fam­i­ly. “Some­one whose pres­ence could in­stant­ly lift the spir­its of those around him, I have nev­er seen this man an­gry at all. Math­ew had this re­mark­able qual­i­ty about him, a warmth that ra­di­at­ed from with­in. His heart was like an open book, filled with noth­ing but love and ac­cep­tance for every­one he met. He pos­sessed a rare kind of hu­mil­i­ty that you don’t of­ten see in young peo­ple these days.” 

The cousin said the 21-year-old was fam­i­ly-ori­ent­ed, deeply spir­i­tu­al, loved cre­at­ing Tik­Tok videos and had as­pi­ra­tions of trav­el­ling the world. “At just 21, Math­ew may not have had the chance to live a long life but he lived a life full of love, laugh­ter and gen­uine con­nec­tions.  He showed us that it’s not the years in your life that count but the life you live. In those years his warmth, his jokes, his easy­go­ing na­ture, his lov­ing heart have left a mark on all of us.”

Fol­low­ing the ser­vice, of­fi­ci­at­ed by Rev Dilip Sama­roo,  Matthew was in­terred at the Tabaquite Pub­lic Ceme­tery.