Letter of the Day | Innings well played, Maxie

THE EDITOR, Madam:

Once again, the passing of a friend measures my own life. I grew up with Maxie (Richard Bernal) as original Mona Heights residents. His late father Franklyn Bernal was an artist who drew classic buildings and beautiful birds, and who epitomised the generation of civil servants. He loved to go to movies or to buy ice cream spontaneously. He was always ready to play football, cricket and marbles with us in the backyard.

Maxie got his nickname from his mother’s maiden name, Maxwell. She was the centre of organisation of Maxie’s life, and by extension, the Bernal family. Outside of the inner circle of family and friends, he was called Richard, the kid who had the full backing of both of his doting parents unlike some of us who were being raised by mothers only.

Then on to Jamaica College he went with some of us, played cricket, developed his social skills, did well academically – Franklyn made sure of that – and then on to UWI and UPenn, and ultimately a career as an academic.

We reconnected at this stage as economists searching for the forces that constrained the development of Jamaica and the Caribbean, and the ways in which we could overcome those constraints. Richard got caught up in the academic fervour around crafting an alternative to the IMF strategy for Jamaica in the late 1970s. In the process, he set his sights on a more activist career that led him to the management of Workers Bank, advising Michael Manley on international economic relations, the ambassadorship to the USA, the head of the Regional Negotiating Machinery that engaged the European Union’s reset of its trade relations with the Caribbean, and finally to pro vice chancellor of The UWI with special responsibilities.

He built his career around a solid family in which he and his wife Margaret nurtured two sons who are now repeating the process with their own families.

Many will remember Richard as a warm, bubbly personality, affable, with a quick wit, and on the move. He spent his professional life helping Caribbean leaders negotiate the global trading system and grew to understand the cold realities of international competition. By many measures, he had a successful career and a fulfilling life.

The early Greeks had a theory about life that revolved about the activity of four muses, or goddesses. One muse holds a ball of string that symbolises a person’s life; a second takes the loose end and walks with it unravelling the ball of string as she walks. A third muse follows along with a ruler measuring the string. The fourth muse walks with a “scissors” and cuts the string at the point of the end of life, which only she knows.

RIP, Maxie – innings well played!

MICHAEL WITTER