Pedro - Goodbye to a friend

January 18, 2007

Goodbye to a friend

I only knew Pedro for 8 years. We met in a saloon. I was there with 2 lawyers.

One of them was my son Sean, AKA The World Famous Attorney, the other was as

recently as last Monday, in my last conversation with Pedro, referred to as our “favorite

well dressed Cuban lawyer”, Carlos Reyes, un abogado grande y un amigo tambien

Although we kept meeting in saloons I never saw him take a drink. We spoke of

Many things; business, boxing, politics, and what has been called the “permanent things”

The reason why we bonded was because each knew that other believed, as the

Poet said

“That the world turns and the world changes, but one thing does not change.
In all my years one thing does not change
However you disguise it, this thing does not change:
THE PERPETUAL STRUGGLE OF GOOD AND EVIL.”

There are some deaths that upset the harmony of the universe.

This is one.

It is accepted that wives bury husbands after a long life. It is jarring when parents

Bury children. It is a consolation devotedly to be wished that good men lead long and

Useful lives.

Sometimes we stand too close to the tapestry. If we stand too close we see but one

Small section of the untidy, unruly, noisy, rough edged thing called life.






SURSUM CORDA!

LIFT UP YOUR HEARTS!

Step back and look at the whole tapestry.

There is but one truth, one fixed star that remains

Pedro, my friend Pedro, is where he wanted to be.

We are enjoined by the New Testament that it is indeed fitting and proper

To visit the sick and bury the dead.

Pedro visited me when I was sick – Indeed, this cane is a gift from

Tom Fiedler, his old boss when I was in the hospital.

I come now to help bury him.

The three of us, Pedro, Nuvia, and I were having lunch in an Indian

Restaurant. While I was trying to meld the cuisines Pedro said to me that a lot of Cuban

Didn’t like Indian food. I said that a lot of Indians didn’t like Indian food. That’s why

They come here. It’s hard to get even a bad Cuban sandwich at the Taj Mahal.

I was unprepared for the segue from whatever was on the plate to the coming

Rapture. What was a bit shocking was that they both, without qualifications, believed it.

More shocking to me, as an aging curmudgeonly New Yorker via New Jersey – 5 years

In the Empire State Building and 12 years twice a day in the World Trade Center – was

That they lived it.

They, by their professions, were in the world.

They, by their beliefs and lives, were not of the world.


“As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain,
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end he remains.”







UN CABALERRO VALIANTE,

UN HOMRE BUENO,

My friend, Pedro Bigantus


PASO POR AQUI

HASTA LUEGO, PEDRO, MI AMIGO

VAYA CON DIOS


And may flights of angels guide you safely home.