The admiration I had for my dad led me to choose French as a second language, due to Alsatian heritage on my paternal grandmother's side. They became Berlin aristocrats, but German wasn't offered at my school. My mom's heritage would have inspired Gaelic, which wasn't spoken by my maternal grandparents, due to the Brits, and their "Black and Tans." (another story, another time...)

My love for the Lillo family was the main driving force for learning Spanish.

Mr Lillo ("Chito") came to me when my father died and said something very similar to "Thomas, the loss of your father is difficult. If you ever need anything which your father would have helped you with, then you call me, right away." They were very comforting words to me. The loss of my dad left me crying every night for 6 months.

I remember bringing a "cuadro de cobre" over to the Lillo house, which is an image etched in copper. It's a traditional Chilean art form. Copper is abundant in Chile, and I'm pretty sure they are the largest copper resource in the world. If Charles Kettering's copper engine would have found success, Chilean copper would have been as famous as American steel, and cars wouldn't have required a radiator or anti-freeze (another story, another time...)

Chito spent a whole rainy Saturday with me making a wood frame for my cuadro de cobre. We used a buzz saw to rough up the edges, making it look like old dead wood washed up at shore. He then showed me how to use a router, which allowed the pieces of wood to interlock with each other, to create a frame. We then stained it dark brown.

Following the funeral ceremony for Eddie I was reminded of the moment with Chito by a copper cuadro of a clown hanging in Eddie and his wife Liz's garage, framed in the same manner as mine. Chito made the frame for that one, too. Chito's brother Mario was the family "copper cuadro" maker. Mario made the one I framed with Chito, on one of my visits to Chile.

My copper cuadro experience inspired me to make my own copper cuadro pictures, while I sat on a couch next to my mom, during the last days of her life. I gave one to my friend Melanie Griffith and her husband Antonio for their birthdays (their birthdays are one day apart). Melanie was performing on Broadway in "Chicago" and Antonio was in the show "Nine," at the same time, right across the street from each other. The cuadro de cobre was a picture of Melanie and Antonio dancing on West 49th Street, between the signs "Nine" and "Chicago." Their daughter Stella was standing between them. When two people find a way to be near each other such as what Melanie and Antonio did, now that's love. (again, another story, another time...).

Eddie and his wife Liz were as much in love as Melanie and Antonio are with each other. Finding that special person to share one's life with is a difficult one, as most of us seem to be looking in the neighbor's yard, holding a glass half-empty.

On another occasion Chito and I built a "magic" rock-shining device, made from a Maxwell House coffee can, attached to a pulley and generator which would spin it. That project was not as successful, as the lights in the house would dim when we turned it on, and the can kept rolling off its rollers, spilling pebbles, sand and water all over Chito's workshop. The success was really in the laughter as we watched it spin, and do its "magic." Chito was always so much fun to be around, and such an animated story-teller. Chito's success was making you smile or laugh while listening to one of his stories. He had that innocent but devilish-little-boy gleam in his eye, similar to Benni Hill's, at the sound of laughter. Sara was the "checks and balances" when moments got too silly...

Eddie was cut from the same cloth as his dad, Chito. He was three years older than me, very bright in school, and "cool." Ninety-five percent of his facial expressions were smiles, which were very contagious. Eddie's 2 best friends Paul and Ray were cool too, and one didn't see the three of them separately, until one fine young gal named Liz stepped into the picture.

Eddie and Liz married, and moved to Yardley, PA. They had three children, Jennifer, Stephanie and James. Ed was a wizard with computers and could solve any software or hardware mystery in a flash. I was planning on knighting him the "Computer Wizard" for a cable network mystery show I was considering. Ed's outfit would have been a silky blue cape with stars and planets all over it, and an unusually tall hat. His appearances on the show would have probably led to a spin-off series he would have called "This damn computer..."

I called Eddie on so many occasions every time I was installing a new device on my computer, or when my software crashed. Eddie always made the time to help me solve my computer mysteries, sometimes on the phone for hours.

Eddie always loved music, and ambiance. The Bronx Zoo is the creative earthling's way of bringing African safari to a more convenient location to appreciate it, like the Bronx. And when Eddie moved his bedroom to the basement, he transformed it into an earthling's interpretation of outer space. The ceiling was covered in a special aluminum which he installed with his cousin Annie. The walls were black, with black-light posters everywhere. And of course, the sound system was amazing. It became a hang-out for all of us, sometimes 20 people or more. I'm pretty sure Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" was the album which Eddie played the most.

Ed's old bedroom upstairs became the guest room, where I must have spent about a quarter of my childhood nights asleep. Ed and Liz's entertainment center in their family room is amazing as well, the centerpiece of their home, custom built into the wall.

One of the most unbelievable and most magic moments of my life was spending the last day of Ed and Lizzie's honeymoon with them, at the Caravanserai Hotel in St. Martin. You see, I was asked to deliver a care package for a friend of a family member who was detained on the Dutch side of St Martin, incarcerated for 6 months due to a financial matter. I had to travel into a remote town, down a long rocky dirt road, to a jail located in the middle of nowhere, guarded by 2 stout, pot-bellied, cigar smoking "federales." It was actually a bit un-nerving when I walked through the door and looked around at the environs of a jail one usually gets to see only in an old spaghetti western movie. The man behind bars was eating ox-tongue for dinner every night, so the care package was truly a gesture of good-will, and much appreciated. I kept saying to myself "God is good," as I wasn't sure about my level of safety or what I'd do if I had to make a run for it.

Despite my self-protective, over-exaggerated reservations and hyper-aware state of mind, everything went well. The guards took a significant portion of the care package for themselves, then gave the rest to the man behind bars. I decided to give my curiosity a rest, and limited my questions during the 1-hour visit, then headed back for the French side of St Martin, where the airport was located. I was 19 at the time.

I told Eddie and Liz during their wedding on Long Island I would most likely be visiting St Martin (where they planned to spend their honeymoon) at the same time. They told me to call them, if I went. When I arrived back to the airport from my Dutch-side adventure, I gave them a call. Eddie told me I had to stop by the Caravanserai, as it was adjacent to the airport. It actually took much encouragement for me to agree to visit them. It seemed so taboo... But then again, what would Huckleberry Finn do in a situation as "unusual" as the one presented? What's "usual" in my life would be considered "unusual" in most others.

So off I went to the Caravanserai to meet Eddie and Lizzie on the last day of their honeymoon... I had about 3 or 4 hours before my departure to San Juan, so I headed over. The three of us experienced uncontrollable laughter when I arrived. It was a surreal moment. A classic, magic moment. Eddie then grabbed my arm to have a pina colada at a serene shack by the water's edge, as the sun set on the horizon. The day was warm and breezy. It was a spectacular sight to see. After we finished the pina coladas I told Ed I'd better head back to the airport, but he convinced me to have one more... We had one more, then I left, still with 1 hour before my flight's scheduled departure.

When I arrived at the airport at about 5:30pm, a guard was putting a chain around the entrance gates to the airport. I told him my flight was scheduled to leave at 6:30pm. He told me they decided to leave early, that there were no more flights until the next morning. I called Eddie and Liz, who told me they already placed a pillow and blanket on the sofa of their honeymoon suite. I left the next morning. They left later that same afternoon. I told them I owed them one day of my honeymoon, whenever that time would come. I meant it.

A few weeks ago I was called to stop by his mom Sara's apartment, as Eddie and Liz were in town. Seeing them was like visiting family. Sara now lives a half-block from me, which makes such visits all the more frequent. Eddie told me he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which presented about a week before, as mild constitutional symptoms. Nine weeks later, Eddie was gone. Like a flash. I don't think anyone, including myself, have surpassed the shock period. Nothing in Real Doctor House's magical black bag to stop the onslaught of this one. It is a diagnosis of frustration.

Pancreatic cancer is one of the most agressive cancers known to mankind. It usually does not present any symptoms until it has surpassed the point of curability. The pancreas is at the hub of the body's venous and arterial system, and does not possess a capsule, like most other organs in the body. Capsules are innervated, so when there's any pressure exerted on an organ's capsule, it induces pain, and thus attention to what might be causing it. For some reason, the pancreas did not get wrapped in one, so it won't let you know there's a problem until it starts pushing on the capsule of a nearby organ, or blocks the ducts coming out the liver, which feed bile to the intestine. The back-up of bile will trigger the yellowing of skin (jaundice), as well as itching.

Eddie's wife Liz recently achieved her R.N. and was in the process of becoming a nurse practitioner (full scolarship at Temple U.), but placed her schooling on hold due to the recent events described above. She has asked her friends to donate to the Pancreatic Cancer Association, PO Box 14906, Minneapolis, MN 55414 or at www.pancan.org so that others might not have to go through what she and her family recently experienced. I'm hoping Liz will find a way to raise her children and still pursue her goal of nurse practitioner, offered to her full-scholarship. Also, if anyone desires to donate to the Edward and Elizabeth Lillo family, I'm sure it will be for making the world a better place, as one of Liz's "pet projects" will definitely be finding a cure for pancreatic cancer.

Grácias, El señor Eduardo Lillo, cara de sonrisa, el caballero de los caballeros, de una familia muy especial, mi familia favorita. Grácias, mi buen amigo!!! Te extrañaré mucho.

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