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I arrived yesterday after a last minute flight full of difficulties due to the carnival holiday. Like so many who interrupted everything they were doing and travelled from somewhere in Europe or Latin-America to arrive on time to pay homage to darling Rolando Toro, I arrived apprehensively, emotional and with a chest full of embraces and tears to exchange with my companions.

 

So many times we have travelled to dance and celebrate life in our courses and congresses throughout the world and I thought I could not miss the chance to also be present in the hour of tears, sadness and rituals of bonding. I know that many companions would have done anything to also be present, but it was impossible. We knew that they were present in spirit and heart. Almost the entire family of Rolando was there as well as many facilitators that have accompanied him in these more than forty years since the beginning of Biodanza.

 

Rolando had a serene appearance. He died in the hospital room while a nurse was arranging his bed and the family was outside waiting to enter. He had a cardiac attack and did not respond to the attempts to revive him. I believe that he thought it was his moment to depart. We spent yesterday afternoon giving support to one another and when someone new arrived they crossed the room to see Rolando. The burial ritual at the funeral was beautiful with all the spoken poems, declarations of love and gratitude to he who gave so much to the world.

 

At the end of the ceremony, Raul Terren (Rolando’s son-in-law) asked me to play two songs so that we could all sing together. We chose the songs that Rolando adored and always used n Biodanza. With the words of a poet who was also a lover of life, Vinicios de Moraes: "Eu sei que vou te mar" (I know I will love you) and "Se todos fossem iguais a voce" (If all were equal to you), it was beautiful and emotional. For me, it had never made so much sense to strum the chords of my guitar with my fingers and emotion. Rolando told me so many times when he saw me playing guitar that I am an Orpheus, in this moment I felt I was playing music for his passing.

 

Today at the funeral more people arrived from all parts of the worlds, travelling hours and hours and overcoming whatever obstacles that were in order to be able to participate in a little of the closing of the farewell. I felt a profound love for my “brothers” of Biodanza and we like the biological sons felt it was farewell to a father. Each embrace and cry was followed by a gesture of affirmation of brotherhood and hope to continue spreading Roland’s work together. The Toro family expressed their feelings in the hour of the burial and it was a moment of profound generosity to gather the world family of Biodanza.

 

I believe that Rolando had a ritual as he would have liked. We heard in the final moments the Partitas of Bach, as he desired. The pain of his loss was embezzled with a profound feeling of love and gratitude. He was honored, revered and sacralised as the creator of a grand hymn of love. May his poem continue sounding in us, also brief passengers in eternity.

 

Antonio Sarpe