Carrying the Cuban Family Torch
On every holiday and every patriotic event, even as a young boy, Beny would recite patriotic Cuban poetry with such passion that the town’s folks would always ask for more.
By Miguel Perez
I had done it before so I thought it wouldn’t be so difficult. In delivering funeral eulogies, unfortunately, I’ve had some practice. But it was always for a friend who passed, never for one of my relatives.
In my own family funerals, I always deferred the eulogy speech to my brother, Beny, who had a special knack for speaking, and even singing, in public. I knew he could do it much better.
Yet, there I was, standing in Beny’s shoes, speaking in church, delivering a family eulogy at a funeral. And I had to find the courage to do it. Of all of us in the Perez family who came from Cuba in the early 1960s, I’m the only one left alive. It was my turn to speak for the “familia.”