She was a fighter... Father eulogises Miss Universe Jamaica finalist Zandrea Bailey

Damion Mitchell, Integration Editor

It began with a declaration by a woman listed on the programme as Althea Hinds-Campbell: a father in mourning had written the eulogy for his deceased daughter and he would read it too.

"I don't know why I took on this task, but I was compelled," Al Bailey told the solemn gathering at the Ocho Rios Baptist Church in St Ann.

It was midway through the thanksgiving service for his 29-year-old daughter Zandrea who died in the United States last month after a seven-year battle with the auto-immune disease, lupus.

Over the next 30 minutes family, friends and well-wishers of the 2014 Miss Universe Jamaica finalist would hear of Zandrea's stories of faith, fate and friendships and her fight with the disease that also claimed the life of her mother Sydlyn two years after her own diagnosis.

Bailey said he shared an inseparable bond with Zandrea and it began from she was in the womb.

He recounted how, as a 21-year-old man, he moved back to his mother's house to "escape" the responsibility after learning that he would become a father.

Bailey said, months later, he received a letter that there was no longer any movement in the tummy of his pregnant girlfriend and that was when he rushed back to her house to get her to a medical facility.

He said as the mother of his child laid on a hospital bed in Kingston, he started to rub her tummy and little Zandrea began to move again. Bailey believes it was Zandrea's fate to survive to make an impact on the world.

If that were not enough, Bailey recalled heading to Montego Bay with Sydlyn while she was three months pregnant with Zandrea when the car picked up a skid and flipped two and a half times.

However, Bailey said they escaped with only minor bruises.

Zandrea would later become his "church baby" attending services and taking part in religious activities as a matter of course.

As the stories continued, Bailey, by now, realised he was not using his prepared eulogy.

"Mi nuh know weh mi deh enuh," he muttered to Hinds-Campbell, still at his side for support.

While she tried to match his stories to the prepared script, Bailey moved on to the theme of friendship, recalling how Zandrea touched lives and defended relationships.

"She impacted every person she came in contact with," Bailey said.

But it was at The University of the West Indies and through the Miss Universe Jamaica competition that Bailey said his daughter was most impactful.

Zandrea was a finalist in the 2014 pageant, two years after she was diagnosed with lupus.

Miss Universe Jamaica 2014 @kacifen, fellow contestant Christine Suragh and national director Mark McDermoth turned out today to pay tribute to #ZandreaBailey pic.twitter.com/xurgegJZ3W

— Damion Mitchell (@DamionMitch) February 10, 2019

Earlier, a tearful Christine Suragh recalled how well Zandrea cemented their friendship as fellow contestants.

"It was a sisterhood," Suragh said, detailing how much Zandrea encouraged her when she considered pulling out of the competition.

Kaci Fennell Shirley, the 2014 Miss Universe Jamaica, was still in awe at the devotion and sincerity with which Zandrea treated their friendship.

But for Mark McDermoth, the national director for the Miss Universe Jamaica, it was her strength as a lupus patient that was most impressive.

"She brought to the pageant that sense of dignity and we can't forget her amazing smile.

She brought an awareness to the illness to the entire universe," he said. Arlene Clare of Finson Sharpe Insurance Brokers knew that smile only too well.

She said for the period Zandrea worked with her, she lit up the office the minute she stepped in and the work seemed easier whenever she was around.

At the stroke of 1 p.m as the clock began to chime, like a soldier on parade, father Bailey advanced towards the rostrum for his penultimate duty: to carry the urn bearing the ash of his daughter.

As mourners congregated in the church yard before dispersing for the final rites, there was still disbelief at Zandrea's passing.

"Zandrea can hold inna bottle?" one woman questioned, gazing at the urn.

"Oh my God, mi tall, tall Zan Zan," she continued, shaking her head.

Moments later at the St Ann's Bay Cemetery, Bailey would place the urn inside a specially created section of the tomb where the body of Zandrea's mother was laid in 2014 after she too lost her fight with lupus.

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