One day, it had to happen. We knew it and so did you. You spoke with courage of the twilight, of the most human of fears, that time you feel ill, when Havana noted your absence and did not cease asking for you.
But no. Death thought better, and left you with us a bit longer. Havana had not yet celebrated her 500th anniversary and a sacrilege was avoided. As you said, “Luckily, death came by, gave me an affectionate greeting, and told me, no, not now.” You went back to work, to the books, the Cabaña Fair, your beloved’s celebration. Your love sustained the return.
No one will come today to tell us it’s a lie, that you are better and will be back. Today we know the blow is real, and no one need be asked to praise you. You, who aspired to nothing great, only to serve. Never seduced by glory, you upheld the glorious. Your name is today a word spoken solemnly by all Cubans, a symbol of integrity.
Imagine that you were once used to test our people with a scare, inventing a lie that you were dead.
The President spoke of you elegantly today, “"Don Eusebio with his loving memory has died, the man who made us cry and laugh with the history of the nation that we are, by giving it character and soul, giving it names and illuminating its darkness, like someone turning on a light in the night". And he invited us to celebrate your "wonderful life, too brief for those of us who loved you for your work, and for who you were." The President insisted that we follow "in his footsteps, continuing the patient and infinite work of saving the heritage of our Cuba, which he loved so much and to which he devoted his life. Eusebio Leal."
"Today the Cuban who saved Havana at Fidel's request has left us, a task he undertook so passionately that his name is no longer his own, but a synonym for the city," Díaz-Canel noted, and he is right. Fused in our memory, there is no way to think of Havana without recalling you, nor will it be possible to remember you without thinking of the city. Long life, dear Historian, in posterity.
