In memory of my uncle, Innocent, who passed away on November 8 after a long battle with ALS.
God has called back to Him a just and good man. It took his death for me to understand his light. This text is for him.

Farewell, Great Man

Not every life is meant to be admired or radiant in the eyes of the world.
Not every life is lived in the light.
Some exist quietly in the shadows, misunderstood, often unseen.
I realize that now, and it breaks my heart.

I met you when I was a child. You were so gentle, so humble.
For a man already a father, you had that rare simplicity of those who know how to make themselves small without ever disappearing.
You came to live with us for a while, just long enough to find a home, perhaps, or to bring your young family closer to ours.
Your family was mine.
You were my aunt’s husband, and that is how I always knew you.
I never tried to know you beyond that.
A mistake that can no longer be repaired, at least not as much as I wish it could.

You built your life elsewhere, far from the city, perhaps closer to who you truly were: quiet, discreet, reserved.
Then time did what it does best, it flowed.
Life went on, pulling us apart little by little, first through obligations, then through miles, until an ocean stood between us.

You left before I could say goodbye.
You left, and I cannot shorten those 6,200 kilometers.

We spend our lives doing without our own, narrowing our circles for no real reason.
We spend our lives meeting new people, forgetting others, until sorrow strikes and calls us back to old memories.
And we realize that what allows us to forget even those we love is the simple certainty that they are alive, safe, well.
That feeling of being useless lets us move on without guilt, forgetting the past and those who once filled it.

I plead guilty.
I forgot your tenderness.
I did not ask for news when you were well.
Then one day, my mother told me you were ill, a disease that would win, slowly but surely, stripping you of everything, leaving you only the cruel awareness of your suffering, and the pain of watching your loved ones suffer in return, imagining life without you, then life without you altogether.
Damn Charcot’s disease.

I knew then that I should come back, to love a man condemned.
I knew I had to be there, before it was too late.
But too late came anyway.
This time I was present, but you were already leaving.
On November 8th.

Since that day, I keep hearing what you were: for your children, for your wife, my aunt, for your friends and colleagues I never met.
Since that day, I know I wasn’t there when it mattered, that I arrived when you were almost gone.
And the greatness of your life appeared to me only in the light of your death.

Life is a stage full of twists and turns; some stories only shine when there is nothing left to write.

My aunt told me that you loved brushing your teeth, that you never raised your voice at her, that you often spoke about education, that you cherished silence.
You used to say: “He who justifies himself loses the battle.”
And also: “To live happily, live discreetly, with what you have, with what you can.”
You believed the most beautiful promises are the ones we can truly keep.
You had promised her that one day she would live in her own home, and you kept that promise.

Thank you for having existed.
Thank you for being great in a modest life.
Thank you for letting yourself be forgotten, for carrying your pain quietly so it wouldn’t spill on anyone else.
Thank you for your courage, your patience, your dignity, for five long years of struggle when everything was taken from you except bravery.

Fly on to your final journey.
I promise to keep making mistakes, but fewer of them, with your memory in mind.
I promise to keep watch, as faithfully as my fragile conscience allows.

Farewell, great man.
May the earth rest lightly upon you.
Here we sing with sorrow.
Send us new songs, so that we may sing better.

Written by Aliane UMUTONIWASE