They knew he was very ill. But the people of Tivoli Gardens also knew that their former member of parliament, Edward Phillip George Seaga, was a fighter who had defied the odds several times in the past, so they planned a massive party to celebrate his 89th birthday yesterday in the hope that he would feel their love in his hospital bed in Miami, Florida, and return to Jamaica to spend more time with them.

But that was not to be.

While the stage was being prepared and the musicians were tuning up the sound boxes in the mid-afternoon, news came that Seaga had lost his fight with cancer, plunging much of his former Kingston Western constituency, and in particular his baby, Tivoli Gardens, into mourning.

In the 1960s Seaga had transformed the slum dubbed ‘Back-O-Wall’ into a modern, low-income residential community that was christened Tivoli Gardens. And for 43 unbroken years, from 1962 until he retired in 2005, he served as member of parliament, mentor, and father figure for scores of residents who dubbed him “Papa Eddie”.

Yesterday, those who could speak without tears recalled numerous special moments with their former MP, who was prime minister of Jamaica from 1980 to 1989.

“We knew that he was going, but it is still emotional to lose our leader,” one woman, who gave her name only as Annette, told the Jamaica Observer inside the Tivoli Gardens Community Centre.

“I remember his love, his kindness, the snorting of his nose because he was getting angry and his love for children, because I was a child when I got involved in this wonderful organisation, the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). Right now, I have mixed feelings,” added Annette before the tears started to flow.

“Me head a hurt me,” sobbed another woman known as “Rubber”, before she started singing the JLP’s anthem Stand Up Jamaica, to cheers from her neighbours.

“Mr Seaga was the best. From me a baby me know Mr Seaga and me a 55 now, so you must know. Me grow up come see my mother and father a run behind Mr Seaga and me love him,” added Rubber.

Popular West Kingston businessman Saleem Lazarus fought back tears as he indicated how much the death of Seaga had impacted him.

“I am deeply saddened. All my life he was like a godfather to me. My father and his relationship goes way back. My father happened to be godfather to his daughter Anabella so the relationship goes way back,” said Lazarus.

“It is like an icon has passed. He was a man who, you could say, saved Jamaica from heading in the wrong direction, and it is just a loss to the community of Tivoli Gardens and the people of West Kingston. He had a passion for the Tivoli Gardens football team and that is what kept him alive all these years.

“No matter how he felt, he always had time to reach out to the footballers. But in all, the people of West Kingston were his love, but he has left it in good hands because Desmond McKenzie is here doing what he is doing. We have lost an icon and somebody that nobody could equal what he meant to West Kingston,” added Lazarus.

While declaring that he would not give in to his urge to cry, Tivoli Gardens resident “Mr T” constantly wiped his eyes as he shared his memories of Seaga.

“A lay down me lay down and hear the news and it come een like say me want to bawl,” he said. “When you lose an icon like that, the whole community sad, and me know that the whole Jamaica a mourn the former prime minister. Right now, me just feel a way.”

In the section of Tivoli some call “Building”, Ms Shaw had much to say about her 40-year association with Seaga even as she chided the people who had been critical of him while he was alive.

“He is my prime minister. Even though Mr (Andrew) Holness is the prime minister, me love Mr Seaga to mi heart. A now that him dead me hear them a talk the good things on the radio about Mr Seaga. You nuh have no prime minister like Mr Seaga,” she said.

“Him was for the poor. Him heart go out to poor people, especially this place that him build: Tivoli Gardens. Him dead with Tivoli pon him heart. Is like half of Tivoli Gardens dead with Mr Seaga. Him send me go learn machine embroidery in my big woman stage, with pay, and him mek whole heap of young people get to learn a trade and get work,” Shaw said.

“One time him say if it come to the test him would come and move into Tivoli Gardens and live with us because him love we to death. Him did say ‘when I die I want to bury with my people in May Pen Cemetery’, but we know we nah go get that,” declared Shaw.

Long-time Tivoli resident and former Seaga right-hand Mazie Clarke, better known as “Ms Pinnis”, heard about the death of her friend long after the rest of the community and declared that she was in mourning.

“Me must feel sad because a him build here and mek me can live comfortable. Me know him from the 1950s and me mourning,” said Clarke.

Yesterday, another Tivoli resident, known as “Babsy”, cleaned a bust of Seaga at the entrance to Tivoli, as she has done for the past 10 years, while what was planned as a birthday party for Jamaica’s fifth prime minister was converted into a celebration of the man who residents of the community will always remember and revere for what he did for them.