IN MEMORIAM
Unreal. Incomprehensible. Que horror. Why do bad things happen to good people? We lost a brother. We lost our go-to buddy. These are some of the words that were spoken when we first learned of the so sudden passing of Anthony Cohen Henriquez, or simply and to all: Tony.
Tony was not just ‘good people’ to which bad things are not supposed to happen. He was the best of people. And he and his family had already endured so many of life’s challenges that this one was simply not supposed to happen.
Tony was always everywhere, always helping everyone. He was never after positions, titles, awards or medals. He was always simply out to help. His sister and brother were felled by cancer at much too young ages, and the burden of being a parent also to their three young children fell upon his shoulders, and he never once complained. And when that awful illness came knocking even closer to home, he looked it in the eye and beat it. And he again never complained, never asked “why me?”.
Tony for many years worked hard for Lions’ Bon Bisiña, he became indispensible to so many projects in our Snoa, he gave his best efforts to Groot Kwartier Apartementen, and he was never too busy to lend a hand when asked to do so for a good cause. And because so many knew that he would never turn away a request for help, he was always being asked to help. And he did so, always.
Seeing Tony manage his WIMCO was seeing a father look after his large family. He celebrated its successes with them and when there was sadness in the WIMCO family, he cried with them. And each New Year’s eve, his pagara would draw friends from afar to help scare away the bad spirits for the next year. Alas, it did not work that way last December 31st.
Tony was above all else a family man. He delighted in dinners and movies and parties with his wife, and in their travels to his favorite spot in the USA, New Orleans. He delighted in his daughters and when each were married to sons-in-law he adopted as his own, they were the best days of his life. He loved celebrating Thanksgiving, New Year’s and the Superbowl with them, and when his New Orleans Saints won that trophy, he danced and jumped around like a small child.
His countless friends will miss him dearly and continuously, almost as much as his family will miss him. He was a role model to many of us, and in celebrating his life we can do no better than to follow his example as a ‘good people’. May Tony have the eternal peace he so deserves. Drumi dushi, mi amigu.
Ron Gomes Casseres
