Although Henry Elliot “Hal” Greaves did not live to the biblical appointed age of three scores and ten, it was the quality of his shortened life that has residents of East Port-of-Spain feeling free to walk their communities once again.
So when scores of his Project REASON participants from Beetham Gardens, Sea Lots and Laventille congregated at the First Church of the Open Bible, San Fernando, yesterday, there were few tears but an abundance of praise in a concert-like send-off.
It was a funeral as vibrant as Greaves’ personality that saw acting Commissioner of Police Stephen Williams, Parliamentary Secretary in the Ministry of National Security Glenda Jennings-Smith and former commissioner of police James Philbert, singing loudly and swaying to hymns.
Greaves, popularly known as “Roy”, was a community activist and actor who died of a heart attack at the age of 55. His final breath came last Saturday at his home at Rushworth Street, San Fernando, the place of his birth.
Despite his many ailments of the heart, kidney and high blood pressure, he never retired from working to disarm the young men and women of the crime-riddled communities of East Port-of-Spain.
For Upper Laventille teenager Tariq Muhammed, 19, Greaves’ work in his community has left a positive impact, especially on the lives of young people. With him gone, Muhammed, like many others wants to see Greaves’ work and legacy continue.
“He helped us to cool down the crime in the community and so far it is going good. Right now the place is normal, about nine months going there has been no shooting. We just want some more sports in the community. We have football and basketball, that is about it.
“Before things were bad. There were all kinds of shooting, children could not come out and play. Now it has cooled down and people can come out and play and we are having sports days. We want to have it more often but we just need a little help getting stuff for the children,” Muhammed said.
It is said ignorance is bliss and for Greaves’ son, Dane, his father was an ignorant man.
“Not ignorant as in actual ignorance where you don’t know what you’re talking about but ignorant in the way a Trini would call another,” Dane told mourners.
He described Greaves as stubborn and own-way, traits that meant whenever he put his mind to accomplish, nothing could stop him. Like ordinary men, Greaves had marital issues that ended in divorce. He quit a sustainable career in advertising to pursue theatre that landed him in financial difficulties.
But while many would question his life choices, Dane believed his father followed his dream of service to God, a dream that saved the lives of many youths who would have ended up in jail or in a grave.
Recalling an occasion when gunmen opened fire on a class Greaves taught in Laventille, Dane said it was that ignorance that saw his father returning the following day.
“His passing will not be another failure because he has touched so many of you. It is time for all of us to pick up where he left us, to use what he has taught us and to become ignorant ourselves and never stop trying,” Dane said. Greaves body was then taken for a private cremation.