Barbados Prime Minister David Thompson dead of cancer at 48

Father, Husband, Son, Prime Minister: David Thompson passes at home, surrounded by family

“Know for sure that this experience has brought me much closer to God, whose compassionate love and grace I commend to you based particularly on my personal experience these past six months.

I invite you to continue to uphold my family and me in prayer at home and at church; in communities and in neighbourhoods wherever you meet. May God comfort everyone who may have lost relatives in recent times; may He bless all who are faced with personal and health challenges; indeed, may He bless each and every family of St John; each and every child.”

… from the Prime Minister’s last letter to his St. John constituents (full text below)

David John Howard Thompson went to be with the Lord on Saturday, October 23, 2010 at about 2:10am. He fought hard, with courage and with the dignity that was always part of his character in public and in private – but in the end the best medicine and doctors could not defeat the pancreatic cancer that claimed him.

Still, it is a mercy that he had time to prepare himself, his loved ones, his friends and his beloved Barbados for his passing.

Our thoughts and prayers are with his wife, Mara, and his three daughters Misha, Oya  and Osa and David’s mum, Margaret Knight.

Here is David Thompson’s final letter to the people of St. John, as released ten days ago…