How do you measure the life of a man?

It seems every few minutes we are reminded of the hole left in our lives by Tonico’s passing.

Now who’s going to make the coffee and walk to the bakery early every morning before Zozó gets out of bed? What happens if the house needs a repair? Who will patiently and generously say yes to any of our requests? And the next time Fluminense loses a futebol game, who will we tease?

We have literally been taking a kind of inventory of Tonico’s belongings. Like many men of his time he saved nearly everything that would seem to have value or usefulness at some future date. On one hand it drove us crazy that he saved almost everything. On the other hand, he got the last laugh when we were remodeling the apartment and he still had a few extra kitchen floor tiles he had been saving for the past 35 years. We put them to good use.

His workshop was packed from floor to ceiling with tools, building materials, soon-to-be-fixed broken stuff, and things only he could tell us what the heck they were.

You know you have made an impact when your male friends break down in tears remembering you. Our private and collective fear that we won’t quite know what to do when something goes wrong is aching evidence of what we have lost.

(Sorry this tribute video has movie credits included – but it was the best audio I could find for this song.)