A son has died, a remarkable son of God and of the Homeland. Eusebio lived a loyal life with her and with Him, in the vortex of the work, in the hurricane of the Revolution.

He died on the road, walking, preacher, priest, pastor, pottery maker, brother, friend.

He carved his own resurrection on the stones of his Havana Galilee, on the soul of its most humble neighbors and on our hearts.

I can’t remember when we met, or when our friendship began, with my family and with the Martin Luther King Center. We shared some initiatives from our Center with the City Historian’s Office (CHO).

I followed the walking teacher and his invitation to walk Havana, many years ago, when he was convinced that the work, he was about to start had to put everybody’s

The Holy Ghost moved by his heart and his voice; that is why he was a blessing for our nation. With the homily that each hour of the Homeland demanded and called for. With the gift of his verb that moved all of us he made even more vivid in all of us the mystery of Jose Marti’s presence, “a mystery -like he said- that for both believers and non-believers makes the word Cuba, the word Homeland, the word Justice, the word Revolution have, unavoidably, a mystic commitment that even the common people, there in the grass-roots, leaning on the walls of so many urgencies, so many needs pressed on us by the stubborn actions of an indefatigable adversary, repeat as last extreme word: he who has faith will be saved”.

 Humbly consecrated in his grey attire to the verb incarnated into action, Eusebio is the last of the Revolution’s prophets. From the intensity of good love, he was a loyal friend of Fidel and taught us to love him without flattery. Due to that he faced problems and urgencies with loyalty, militancy and freedom.

In our written messages and in our greetings, I got used to call him “brother”, due to our shared faith and cause and “Father” due to the doble condition I vested in him as father and priest. I never felt so much affection from another person, in his presence, as a loving father; or a deacon’s devotion, as a pastor.

I seldom see my father read. At 85, in our home, the only book he does not let go is the Bible. Yesterday I saw him take the book With An Open Heart, which became my mother’s will (she was a Baptist pastor) thanks to a long interview by Isabel Rauber. It was published barely one year before her death. He took the book and like he does when he reads the sacred text, sat by the bathtub’s edge, taking advantage of the good light in the bathroom.

Today, just after confirming the truth on the news, I realized this fact in awe. The day before, the hand of God took my father, whom Eusebio loved and cared for as brother, to the text that gathers the words spoken by Leal during the presentation of that book in its second edition. I do the same now. There he travels the common history between personal and family epics lived by him, otter religious believers and other men without religion.

That January 24, 1994, in the rooms of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Center, before the keen look of the neighbors of Pogolotti neighborhood -grandchildren and great-grandchildren of those humble cigar workers and fighters of our wars who followed with equal devotion Marti’s fiery words- Eusebio said:

“These men, women and youths, all of us gathered here, have survived, we are the children of a word of redemption said under the sky and under the stars of Cuba. We have survived, on the basis of saving ourselves with our Homeland or perish with it.”

And, in return to him, in gratitude and in homage, the words that he addressed to my mother that night, I paraphrase:

And that is, truly, the sign of passion, the sign of love, the sign of consecration, that Eusebio imprinted to his life and work.

Eusebio, we wait for you. When we ban the pandemic with the same citizen responsibility that you instilled in us, we will return to Old Havana, to that secular temple of your city, our city. We will gather there and like during the first days of your titanic work, with White sheets hanging from the balconies, this time we will invite you: lets go, Eusebio, lets walk Havana.

Keywords: Eusebio Leal, Havana, Homeland, City Historian’s Office