Eulogy for George Farinha:
“Who Is George, not Who Was George”
by Roger Farinha
I title my eulogy “Who Is George” because I have the deepest and most unbreakable faith and assurance that our souls are immortal, never to die. Our souls live in the realm called Heaven, where God’s indescribable Love is superabundant. George has only returned home.
As a younger brother growing up with George, the one thing that strikes me about my big brother’s personality is that he is a practical joker. Every one of his siblings was a but of his pranks, but his older sister Sheron was a particular target. The family would just smilingly wag their heads while recounting George’s boyhood antics, loving George for the unique breath of fresh air his personality brought to the family.
A particular memory I have was the time when our pig broke loose from its pen, and George and his friends went a-hunting. They scoured the woods all evening, and after dark they came back, successful. What was most humorous about the event is that afterward, they made up a song about the great hunt, along a campfire, and George sang of how they had to “lasso the pig by the battie.” Battie means but, for those who are not aware of Guyanese slang.
Our father also recounts a memory that forever stuck with him. George found a way to get revenge when he was a boy, on the older boys who would accept his mangoes for sale but would refuse to pay him. George invited them one day to the mango tree to pick all they could eat, and when they crossed the trench to the mango tree, George started pelting our Africanized beehive with rocks. The bees came out angrily and gave George’s enemies a proper stinging.
This is George as the practical joker member of our family, but George was also a man of action. George would always be on the move. He just couldn’t seem to stand still. He always had a group of friends with him on his adventures. He would race motorbikes on the streets of Brooklyn. He would hit the nightclubs on the hunt for girls. He would spend hours fixing up his fast cars. And in the evening, he would drink heavily with his friends. But this brings me to his own brand of generosity.
George would throw big parties, have big weddings, and he would always supply the liquor. When he did something, he did it big, never small. I know that one of the main reasons why he is so loved is for this very magnanimity.
But I would now like to end with something about George that no one maybe ever really understood. George was besieged by his mind. According to the dictionary, to be besieged is to be surrounded by armed forces. I’m not saying George was surrounded by armed forces of people, but he was plagued by another sort of attacker—his restless mind.
Back in 1983 or 1984 when I was just 12 and George was about 16, we shared a room in our apartment above a bar at the time,right here on Avenue D, across from the old Discount store. George was on his way out the window again, as he would sneak out every night. Being more of a homebody and never one to roam the streets, I asked him that evening “George, why do you always go out every night?” How he answered me kind of stuck with me as something very important about him. He said, while shaking his head, “I just can’t rest my mind.”
In life, we are all born with our own burdens. No one knows what challenges are endured by any other. This is the meaning of the old Indian adage “don’t judge a man unless you have walked a hundred miles in his moccasins.” The bottom line is, I see a part of George that we should always keep in mind if we will truly appreciate him. George was a kind of RELENTLESS WARRIOR in a battle that lasted for 56 years, against the forces of his restless mind. His mind would take him to great highs, and everyone would love him then as he would be the life of the party. And who knows if his heavy drinking in these instances was not done as his way of slowing his racing mind, even after having worked HARD all day to satisfy his restlessness? But sometimes, when no one is around to see, George’s mind would take him to the greatest lows. Inside George, there was a pit of darkness and depression so deep that no one could truly ever understand—except maybe today.
So, to send off my beloved brother I pray: “Refresh yourself now, my brother besieged. Your soul no longer must endure the endless restlessness. God Himself refreshes you and gives you the energy and strength you need to mount up like a phoenix from the ashes. Sore high, my big brother. Sore high forever. I only now wag MY head when I think: our family on earth may have lost their practical joker, but Heaven is now in for it! Lol.
New American Spring 