For the countless losses I have lived in life, I thought I have been done with holding tears. I must confess I have just done it again in reading your dad’s eulogy. It never ends.
Life, that is.
My holding the tears was not just because of the title of the piece; which I would consider on my end more like a flight, a takeoff, a crossing on another height of your dad’s journey(1). My reaction came up because of the resemblance of your story with my very own experience, decades earlier when my parents traversed by travelling the same path. What also made me feel much related is both the candor of your narrative, and my familiarity with that man of good will we all - youth in our family circles, and even other adults - affectionately called Ton Doudou.
I feel grateful to have also lived a little bit of the pride and dignity in Ton Doudou’s ever modest and wise aura. Like his fellow friends and brothers in arms (both my late dad, and my father-in-law), Ton Doudou remains for many of us a father figure, if not a friendly big uncle we all can look up to. He was a man of good will. These types of unsung heroes always live for all times through their surviving, yet uncompromising legacies. Ton Doudou’s crossing is to remind us all Bien-Aimé, that other unsung hero in Jacques Roumain’s Masters of the Dew(2).
Life never ends; that is what it is, my brother.
NOTA:
(1) I had in mind while writing this, one of my favorite Ansy Dérose’s songs: “Nou se zwazo, se vole n konn vole, ki mele n avè yo.” (You’d have to listen to the entire song to see how it relates to Ton Doudou).
(2) ”La vie c’est un fil qui ne se casse, qui ne se perd jamais. Tu sais pourquoi? Parce que chaque nègre pendant son existence y fait un noeud: c’est le travail qu’il accompli et c’est ça qui rend la vie vivante dans les siècles des siècles”.
My Brother:
For the countless losses I have lived in life, I thought I have been done with holding tears. I must confess I have just done it again in reading your dad’s eulogy. It never ends.
Life, that is.
My holding the tears was not just because of the title of the piece; which I would consider on my end more like a flight, a takeoff, a crossing on another height of your dad’s journey(1). My reaction came up because of the resemblance of your story with my very own experience, decades earlier when my parents traversed by travelling the same path. What also made me feel much related is both the candor of your narrative, and my familiarity with that man of good will we all - youth in our family circles, and even other adults - affectionately called Ton Doudou.
I feel grateful to have also lived a little bit of the pride and dignity in Ton Doudou’s ever modest and wise aura. Like his fellow friends and brothers in arms (both my late dad, and my father-in-law), Ton Doudou remains for many of us a father figure, if not a friendly big uncle we all can look up to. He was a man of good will. These types of unsung heroes always live for all times through their surviving, yet uncompromising legacies. Ton Doudou’s crossing is to remind us all Bien-Aimé, that other unsung hero in Jacques Roumain’s Masters of the Dew(2).
Life never ends; that is what it is, my brother.
NOTA:
(1) I had in mind while writing this, one of my favorite Ansy Dérose’s songs: “Nou se zwazo, se vole n konn vole, ki mele n avè yo.” (You’d have to listen to the entire song to see how it relates to Ton Doudou).
(2) ”La vie c’est un fil qui ne se casse, qui ne se perd jamais. Tu sais pourquoi? Parce que chaque nègre pendant son existence y fait un noeud: c’est le travail qu’il accompli et c’est ça qui rend la vie vivante dans les siècles des siècles”.
Such a deep reflection on life, death, and dying!