On october 19th, I visited the Bank of Brazil Cultural Center, in an old building in downtown São Paulo, to see a Laurie Anderson´s retrospective exhibit. Among pictures, pieces of art, and writings on walls, one particular writing took my attention. It was written: "A person dies three times. The first time when his heart stops beating. The second when he is buried or cremated and the third time it´s when someone says his name for the last time."
I loved this statement and had a smile on my face because it confirmed what I thought about it, that a person only dies definitely when someone speaks his name for the last time. I thought that because I had always heard in my life that the dead people still alive in the memories of the dear ones.
On october 24th, I received an e-mail from a french person, in response to an earlier question made by me, informing that my french friend Christian Cordonnier, who was not answering my phone calls or e-mails anymore, had died almost a year ago.
It was a shock. Although I feared something since I knew he was fighting a cancer, I still had hopes that he was still alive, just in depression. I had hopes that I would write him letters in french again and he would answer me in portuguese, so he could correct my french, and I could correct his portuguese in order to improve our skills in the other´s language.
So although I won´t be able to have the gladness of his friendship again, I will still say his name, and it won´t be for the last time. Christian Cordonnier, o Sapateiro (Cordonnier means Shoemaker in french and in portuguese is sapateiro), as he liked to call himself in portuguese , or Cristiano, the drummer of Nantes, the most brazilian of all frenchmen. I will always say his name: Christian Cordonnier.
