JAMAICAN journalist and communications practitioner Clare Forrester was yesterday described by family members and friends as “a star among us” who left behind a wealth of legacy.

“For us, Clare was a star because of the lessons she left with us,” Forrester’s older brother, Huntley Forrester, said in his remembrance at a thanksgiving service for her life at Webster Memorial United Church in Kingston.

“Star because of the lessons she has taught us and that will continue to sustain us. The Bible said ‘let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and come to glorify Him’, and that is what she embodied. She reflected a certain light, and those lights live on and will continue to live on in the things she has done,” the older brother by 17 months said.

He pointed to things that others would not have known about his strong, impactful sister who fought cancer valiantly for over a year before finally succumbing on September 9.

“There are things about Clare that you would not have known,” he said. “Things like the little boy whom she met in the marketplace and who would carry her bags and she ended up sending him to school and buying his books. Or the little boy who experienced truancy at school until he was finally expelled and she went in to speak to the principal and his place was restored. Or her nephew, whom she would pay his way to go to the Olympics to expose him to sports. Or even that niece that was born in the United States that she would pay to come to Jamaica so she could experience the Jamaican culture,” her brother said. “Those are the little things that others did not know about but which she did quietly.”

He said, as he sat with her holding her hands in her last moments before her passing, her transition was serene.

“Her face looked so serene. There was no struggle, her face was not contorted. There had to be something in her life that made her looked so serene. When the end came, I believe she made that transition triumphantly. I believe she was looking in the eyes of her God,” Huntley Forrester added.

In a passionate and heartfelt sermon, Rev Astor Carlyle also made reference to the Godly life that Forrester led and the impact her life had on others. He used her life to challenge others to think about their own lives and the legacy they will leave behind.

“I look at the programme at that small dash between the time she was born and the time of her death,” Rev Carlyle said. “And nestled in that dash between her birth and her death is the real story. Each of us has a dash. That dash is how you are living your life, what will you leave behind as a legacy, what story will your dash tell,” he said.

“Clare’s life was a well of legacy. So what legacy will you leave behind? She left behind a legacy of love. She showed that love was more than an emotion to feel something, but that it challenges us to do something and make a difference. We need persons like Clare who refused to treat others less than ourselves. Persons like Clare who will root for others and turn our hearts right side up; where we love people and use things, instead of using people and loving things. She was a conduit of God’s love.

“She showed us that excellence was not a skill, but an attitude. She left behind a legacy of excellence, and she left behind a legacy of faith,” said the pastor, who baptised Forrester years ago.

Former Prime Minister PJ Patterson, who was a close friend of Forrester, having met her in 1972 in the health ministry, said that for the last four years she helped in the preparation of the many tributes he gave and now he finds himself paying one to her. But, while people had many accolades to pay to her, he said there was much more left unsaid.

“Her life was of tremendous dimension and significant achievements,” Patterson said. “I knew her as a reliable associate and a trusted friend. She was no ordinary gem, but a jewel that would sparkle and glow.”

Patterson said Forrester brought passion and creativity to every assignment she tackled, and mastered the art of separating facts from her own opinions.

“She was a walking encyclopaedia of cricket, football and track and field,” Patterson said.

Worshipping under the theme ‘Saved, sanctified and sealed for His courts of above’, musical tributes were paid by Commander John McFarlane, who sang Until Then, and Kevin Williams, The Holy City.

Tributes were also paid by family friends Alvin Campbell, and Dr Omar Davies, Sam Rennalls from Webster Memorial United Church, and William Watson, while Franklin McKnight spoke on behalf of the Press Association of Jamaica (PAJ), of which Forrester was an active member and former secretary.

“Journalism was everything to her and more,” McKnight said. “Her living room was the meeting room for the PAJ secretariat. Even after a building was acquired, she still continued to meet there from time to time. She was the memory bank of the institution and was greatly respected across the region.”

Forrester, who wrote a weekly column in the Jamaica Observer on media issues before she went abroad for medical treatment, had extensive experience in a range of social communication roles with national, regional and international organisations.

She died on September 15, a day after the Annual General Meeting of the PAJ at which a new executive body was elected. She was 69.