By Aparecida De Souza, October 17, 2019 — My father was one of the most peaceful persons that I ever knew or met.
He was always calm, never seemed to get angry about anything, and never ever beat his children.
I don’t think there was even a conflict in his life that he wouldn’t have faced and solved, always good naturally, or sometimes, jokingly.
One such occasion, as I remember, and I was no more than 4 or 5 years old – this has impressed me so much that I could never forget it:
My father had sold one of his horses to a man that lived 2 or 3 farms away from our place. The buyer had not made any parents to and a long time passed without the family hearing from him.
One of my uncles (my mother’s brother) sent word to the man that he should come and pay his debt to my family or he would “do I don’t know what.”
Soon after that, one day, the man showed up at our porch – I remember, the scene – everyone was outside meeting him. One funny thing is that he had left the horse way up on one side of the road, very far.
He came in no friendly mood, screaming and saying that he refused and was not going to pay anything to anybody!
My uncle followed, exchanging words and screaming at him the same way, and at no time jumped to personal aggression, ready to hit him.
My father threw himself between the two and simply said:
“If it takes a fight to solve the problem, forget about it: I pardon you you don’t owe me anything – the horse is yours!”