The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

SIR Arlington Butler was remembered as a father, a politician, an ambassador, an intellectual, an advocate for sports and a patriot in a funeral service at the Christ Church Cathedral Friday.

The funeral service came a little more than two weeks after the 79-year-old died at the Princess Margaret Hospital.

His eldest son, Arlington Gibao Butler, said: "One of the key things that I learned from my father that I will carry throughout my life is the value of family. He committed himself to his family. Family to him was an expansive group. My father had his flaws, frailties and shortcomings like anyone else but he was one of the greatest Bahamians that I have known and my hero. When I looked at him as a child I saw a giant of a man. When I looked at him in the last few months, I saw a frail boy, scared of what the future may hold, longing for the adoration of the crowd, wishing that his friends would come and see him and in a lot of pain, both physically and psychologically."

"The last time I touched my father without gloves, gowns and his mask, I went to see him about a week before he passed. I was sitting in a room and we weren't saying anything to each other. I don't think it was because we didn't have anything to say; we just didn't know what words to say because we knew this wasn't going to be so much longer. And then he asked me if I could hold his hand and I held his hand for an hour and then he quietly slipped of to sleep. All the things I've done for my father and all he's done for me, that's the one most endearing moment that it will stay with me for the rest of my life. Because in that moment in his fear of transitioning to the other side, with this pain he was suffering, he could find comfort in just holding my hand."

For his part, Prime Minister Dr Hubert Minnis praised Sir Arlington, tracking his efforts advocating for majority rule to his time in government, which included serving during the early days of the Pindling Administration as well as in Cabinet during the first Free National Movement government. Keith Joseph, a representative of the International Olympic Committee, brought levity to the somber event, recalling Sir Arlington's dignified stature and memorable speeches at assembly meetings.

"Never let it be said that Arlie at any time faltered in marketing this country," he said. "He was one of the best salesmen of this beautiful country the world has ever come to know… Ask any member of the sports fraternity what they remember most about Sir Arlington Butler and everyone would break out into a broad smile. To see Arlie at a general assembly was to be present at a classic pantomime. His every action formed a critical part of his performance. For Arlie to get up and speak at an assembly, Arlie would raise the country's tag; (I) never knew how there could be drama to that too, and by the time his hand got up everyone would've known that it was the Bahamas and God forbid that the chairperson failed to recognize him. Arlie would look around the hall to see if anyone else's hand was up… Once you gave Arlie the floor, Arlie then engaged in more drama because to see Arlie rise from his feet to speak was to see dramatization. Arlie never learned to just get up; Arlie had to stand up and allow everyone to recognize this giant of a man getting up so that by the time he got up to stand upright, even the chairman worried because the entry was so magnificent."