Matriarch Ma Morris

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Family [fam-uh-lee, fam-lee] a collection of souls intimately connected by blood, as parents, children, uncles, aunts, and cousins. Regrettably, requiems and nuptials inescapably bring our family together. The Flores, Jennings, and Morris families made the journey to 🇹🇹 for the funeral services for Matriarch Ma Morris on May 17, 2019.

Matriarch Ma Morris

Delmira Francisca A. Cabbrera Morris was born on June 16, 1926. Delmira affectionately known as Ma Morris was the daughter of Louis Castro Marot and Manuelita Cabbrera. Louis and Manuelita were Venezuelan labourers that migrated to the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago at the beginning of the twentieth century in the quest for a better life. Ma Morris was the beloved mother of eight children, thirteen grandchildren, eighteen great-grand, and two great-great-grandchildren.

I wasn’t as intimate as I should have been to my granny Del as my other kin. However, her life story, as communicated during the eulogy, made it copiously apparent that she made the arc of successfulness for our extended family probable with her original migration to North America.


Matriarch Ma Morris Migration

Ma Morris immigrated to North America with the single objective of affording a better life for herself and her eight children that lived in Trinidad. She ultimately obtained employment as a domestic for a doctor in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Ma Morris fulfilled her duties for the Virginia doctor and his family with professionalism and was repaid with a sponsorship of a Green Card to become a naturalised resident of the United States of America. This exceptional achievement enabled the larger extended generations of aunts, uncles, cousins to petition for and ultimately obtain citizenship in the United States. Personally, I have no doubt that my personal life trajectory would have been different if not for her personal sacrifice in coming to America.


Famalay

In Trinidad, the word ‘family‘ or ‘famalay‘ is used not only as a noun but also most in the sense of an adjective meaning ‘related to’.

Man even if we fall out
Bredrin we go all out
We would neva
Watch di family dem fall and sprawl out
From everywhere we crawl out
We ready to brawl out (lawd)
Fire bun, a friend is family we bawl out

Ma Morris’s ethereal passage provided a once in a lifetime occasion for all her descendants to coalesce in beautiful Trinidad to honour her life, legacy, and longevity. Ma Morris will be missed by all the lives she encountered.

Small Sampling of Famalay

Rest In Eternal Peace…..Love; Love.


Featured Image by Ylanite Koppens from Pixabay

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