Angelic Angelo

For a citizen, 34-years-old, and without any high public office or enormous riches, the multitude of heart-felt eulogies at Angelo’s passing seemed unprecedented. And deserving, so exceptional was he. His father, Rudolph Bissessarsingh, noting Angelo as “the longest surviving person afflicted here with pancreatic cancer,” said that Angelo always had “a permanent smile on his face, even under the most stressful conditions.”

At his final moments, Angelo recalled Lord Pretender’s tune:” Never ever worry, doh mind how things looking bad.” An incredible and most unusual human being, said Simone de la Bastide. True, as my colleagues, Professor Bridget Brereton and Gerry Besson said, he was not the university historian, but everyman’s historian. Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, noting Angelo’s friendship with his son, said: “He has proven that people with curious minds and a love for knowledge can be some of our most shining examples of citizenship.” His friend and collaborator, Paolo Kernahan, recalled Angelo’s “rapier wit” and freedom from ordinary prejudices. His life exemplified the verse: “If I can help somebody, then my living will not be in vain.” It was what he did and how he did it that attracted the heart-felt eulogies.

But it was more - his personality.

Always cheerful, with dimpled smile and twinkling eyes. These while enduring, as his doctor said, “the emperor of maladies, the king of pain.” Opposition Leader Kamla Persad- Bissessar said: “Angelo’s wit and charming smile brought joy to anyone who interacted with him.” It is people like Angelo who still nudge us into believing “what a wonderful world.” Yet in that same week, the murders were horrific.

Some graphic headlines: “Four more murders.” “Father charged for attempted murder of son,” “Businessman killed while texting wife,” “Pensioner stabbed to death,” “Boy, 15, shot dead in panyard,” ”Dasheen farmer shot dead in Biche,” etc. Then this too: “Bully breaks boy’s arm.” So much so that Pastor Vernon Duncan, delivering the sermon at the funeral service for traffic victims Carla Collins and her two sons, cried out: “Only God can save this country.” All this at the time the angelic virtues of Angelo were being urged for nation-wide acceptance.

At Belgrove’s Funeral Home, his father eulogized: “Angelo was born into abject poverty, but I felt like the richest man to ever walk this earth because here was this little boy with this bright smile on his face, calling me Pa.” Angelo wrote, among other things, three books. He died “penniless.” His father gave a glimpse of life’s cruelty when he said, “As he started to put on weight so rapidly, people were unkind to him, and I paid thousands to doctors. They took all the money and found nothing wrong with him. I had to pay $43,000 for them to put a fibre cable in his stomach to tell him he had stage 4 pancreatic cancer.” (Guardian, Feb 3).

With spiritual courage, he recited to his crying father: “Everything in this universe is a river – the blood in your veins is a river; the sap in the tree is a river; the electricity is a flow of electrons, it is a river; the solar wind is a river of energy flowing towards the earth.” And showing that he knows what he was talking about, he continued:” The dark energy that encapsulates all the universes and galaxies is a river. My consciousness came from that river. But when I return, Pa, I want you to let all my friends know that I will carry in that river the fond memories of each and everyone.” (Guardian, Feb 6) We know death will come, but it takes great courage to walk peacefully into that moment. Angelo’s recitation reminds me of Shakespeare’s words through Julius Caesar: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I have yet heard, it seems to me most strange that men should fear; seeing that death, a necessary end, will come when it will come.” The curtains were drawn; angelic Angelo went away courageously.

He did it his way.