For as long as they can remember, the children of Sylvia Jack have known the shape of sacrifice.Before the sun even thought about rising, Sylvia would be up, ironing school uniforms, packing lunches in reused plastic containers, whispering quiet prayers while trying not to wake the little ones. Then, with a bag slung over her shoulder and tired eyes fixed on the future, she would be driven from Buenos Ayres to Point Fortin by her taxi driver husband, just to catch the 4 a.m. bus to Port of Spain where she worked as a public servant. Rain or shine, day after day, year after year.
She did this not for recognition, not for praise, but for her four children.When her husband passed away, marking the end of their marriage, Sylvia stood taller, even with the weight of the world on her shoulders. She requested a transfer to a closer government office in San Fernando. And though the commute became less brutal, life didn’t. Eventually, she moved her children to Chaguanas to give them better access to school and more stability. She built a life for them, piece by piece, stretching paychecks, drying tears, and planting seeds of strength and dignity in her home.
Then came the hardest blow of all, the death of her second child, Joshua, whose absence still lingers like a quiet shadow in her heart. But Sylvia did not crumble. She stood. She carried her grief and kept raising Maria, David, and Alana with the same unwavering love that had always defined her.Today, Maria is a Registered Nurse in Miami. David, a brilliant Software Engineer in the UK. Alana, a sharp and spirited Marketing Consultant in Chicago.
They’ve built lives far away, each one driven by the values their mother instilled in them.Yet for 35 years, they were never all in the same room together. Life, distance, and duty always got in the way.But this year, 2025, that changes.Today, on Mother’s Day, which also marks Sylvia’s 80th birthday, her three surviving children are all home, right here in Trinidad.
For the first time in over three decades, they will sit at her table together. They will laugh in her kitchen. They will fall asleep under the same roof that once sheltered their dreams and their doubts.They plan to visit Joshua’s grave together, something they’ve never done side by side as a family. And more importantly, they plan to spend the weekend holding space for the woman who held everything together.
Sylvia never asked for much. She never had to. Her joy has never been in grand gestures. It has always been in seeing her children safe, happy, and together, even just for a moment.
This Mother’s Day, we celebrate Sylvia Jack: A mother who journeyed miles before sunrise so her children could chase dreams across oceans. A woman who buried a child but never buried her hope. A public servant who gave her country her days, and her family, her life. And a queen, whose crown was never gold, but always grace.