The View From 75!

Our Friend Armando

 

The last time we’d seen Armando was in 2007.  For almost a decade we’d been going south during February break.  He and his wife Kenia ran a restaurant on magnificent stretch of beach on the Pacific Coast of Mexico.  We’d watched their son grow from the time he was a toddler.

 

They were our beach friends for the week we spent with them.  We’d bring them maple syrup and they’d let us sit at their restaurant until sunset.  They were warm and caring and made us feel more than welcomed at their restaurant.

 

That was the last time we saw them.  Life got in the way. I retired.  Other winter destinations were chosen.  We never communicated, but other friends we’d made during our week away kept us updated.

 

In late 2011, an early morning phone call alerted us that Kenia had been murdered the night before.  On an early December evening, as she was leaving the restaurant alone, lone men demanded the day’s money.  She resisted.  They killed her.

 

The news numbed all of us who’d known her, knew them.  There was no way to reach out.  We were all left in a painful state of limbo, especially for those of us who no longer went to the beach town.

 

By then, I was living in Mexico City part of the year.  Two months after the shooting I flew to the coast, went to the restaurant.  I wanted to see Armando, hug him, tell him I cared.  But he was gone.  He’d left Mexico and brought the child with him to California to live with his sister.

 

The years slid by.  No one ever went out to that beach again.  Some of us were still stuck in 2011. 

 

I never returned.  Until 2024.  Seventeen years had elapsed.  We were in the beach town for only three days, but made tracking down Armando a top priority.  We, of course, returned to the beach.  The restaurant he and Kenia owned had been sold and the new owners were able to give us sufficient information.  That evening was taxied to his new place—an elegant hotel/restaurant on one of the beaches in the city.

 

An acoustic jazz musician was playing to a packed audience who’d paid almost 1,000 pesos for the concert and set meal.  Everyone looked well-heeled.  American and Canadian tourists on vacation.  The hostess spotted us immediately.  “Hi guys,” she said.  “Welcome.”  English.

 

“We’re looking for Armando,” we told her.  “Which one?  The owner or the waiter?”  

 

We entered, and in a minute or so Armando the owner approached us.  It took a minute.  We had to remind him who we were.  We were maybe the only people who brought them real maple syrup each February.  He remembered us.

 

We talked.  He bought us a drink.  He was remarried.  His son was married and living in California.  He had three step daughters, one of whom greeted us.  He was happy.  He told us the process of grieving, the hard work necessary to get where he is today.

 

The concert ended.  People lingered.  We said our good byes. But before we left, he asked us, “May I have a hug?”  It was warm and friendly.   

 

We gathered our things, chatted with his stepdaughter, then left.  I glanced back and saw him sitting with one of his guests.  He was a master at this, and was a master at it when we first met him.  He had moved on, and he had moved on remarkably well.  He was a man transformed, resurrected.  He reminded me of Aslan when he’d come back to life after the White Witch had murdered him.  “There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane, stood Aslan himself.”

 

He was larger than he was when we last saw him in 2007.  He had moved on, done the necessary work to make that happen.  

 

Both of us were feeling overwhelming happy.  His transformation had touched us deeply.  I think he was happy that we remembered and sought him out. 

 

Life moves on.  He was a new man.  Nothing can bring back Kenia, but he made the decision to move on.

 

I think she would be pleased as well.