FAREWELL TO DUDA :: By Mário Cabral e Sá
mariocabra...@yahoo.co.in
I dedicate this column to Maria dos Anjos Messias Gomes e
Rebello -- Duda to her family and her innumerous friends and
admirers, among whom I was perhaps one of the oldest.
She was no famous personality, no beauty queen, though she
was elegant and tall, with a very winsome smile, her
companion even in adversity which never left her lips till
her death on January 5, 2010.
She was a woman with an incredible inner strength, hope and
courage. Which was admirable in her circumstances. She
suffered from cancer, one of the most treacherous and rare, a
cancer of the pericardium, the membranous sac enclosing the
heart.
Oncologists give such patients days, maximum a
month or two. But she survived it for two and half
years, partly because months after she had entured
it with sheer will power for a month or so, a new
drug specific to her condition was launched, and
promptly administered to her by her physician and
nephew Dr Oscar Rebello.
Never did her smile go away from her lips, even till her last
breath. She celebrated Christmas and new year with her
trademark joviality.
The cancer had reduced her to skin and bones, but did not
affect in the least her joie de vivre. When she realised that
death was at her door, she called her three daughters-in-law,
took out her jewellery box and offered each one of them the
jewels they most admired.
"I give them to you because I know you loved them
most. I never got them valued and perhaps valuewise
the distribution was not equitable. You will
forgive me if that was the case. But that was not
my intention."
Who would be so thoughtful and articulate in her dying
moments? She called Venezuela, where her favourite brother
lived and died, like her, of cancer, and spoke to his son who
she had taught Konkani, and in Konkani she spoke the last words.
More: she called her nephew Kevin, Oscar's brother, and asked
him to come. She had kept a gift for him and wanted to give
it herself. And finally she told Dàmaso, her husband, "I
lived enough and we lived happily." And she died at peace
with herself. She had lived her life to the fullest.
She had, just before, told her daughters-in-law the dress she
wanted to be draped in for her funeral, the colour of
lipstick and nail polish. Hers is an incredible story of
fortitude and grace.
A few months back, when her physical condition had
deteriorated, her last son, Glen, got married. I went to wish
her and Dàmaso and the bridal couple all the very best and to
tell them that, much to my regret, I would not attend the
wedding, my arthritis had worsened and I was in great pain.
She wasn't home, she had gone to the hair dresser. Dàmaso,
my old friend as Duda was, for over 60 years, opened for me a
premium whisky which he preserved for 40 years or more, and
we had a drink and were having the proverbial "one for the
road", when Duda returned from the beautician all made up and
georgeous as ever.
She insisted I have lunch with them, told by the cook that it
was a run-of-the-mill lunch, she went to the kitchen, and the
excellent cook that she was, prepared in a jiffy an excellent
meal. We all knew, she included, that death was at her door.
But she went for the wedding, hosted the guests gracefully as
ever, and danced all night.
Did the reader ever meet a woman with such indomitable
courage? I had not, till I met Duda.
She was the daughter of Professor Messias Gomes, a
graduate in English and German literature, by the
Lisbon University. Besides teaching at the Lycé,
he also contributed to newspapers like 'A
República, a veryprincipled and independent
journal founded and edited by Dr Antonio Jose de
Almeida, a prominent man of letters and politician.
When he was elected the President of the Portuguese
Republic, he entrusted his newspaper to Messias
Gomes, who ran it ably, till he decided to return
to Goa and found 'O Heraldo', the oldest daily in
the Portuguese colonies.
It is in that paper that I cut my journalistic teeth and
learnt what journalism is all about, at 20 years of age. At
22, I helped my colleague Dr Eduardo Dias to run it. I am 77
now and that is how long I became a close friend of the
Messias Gomes family and knew Duda, a teenager then.
Fare thee well, Duda. If a heaven there is, that is
from where you will read these heartfelt lines
dedicated to you by me.
Courtesy: The Gomantak Times, Panjim January 12, 2010
