On Sunday morning when I checked my e-mail, I saw that Elma Whittaker Augustine had mailed me the day before to say that her husband, Cliff, had passed the day before in Chicago.

We knew that with Cliff it was only a matter of time, because he had been ailing for years with serious kidney disease. In fact, just a few months ago he insisted that Elma bring him home one last time to visit his home village, Hopkins (Stann Creek District), which she did, although the trip was complicated by all the medical apparatus and medications involved with Cliff’s condition.

I met him at a home they had built in the Lake Garden area on that visit, and the love between him and Elma was, as always, awesome and inspiring. I thought, as always, what are these two doing being such friends of mine when my personality is so different from theirs, so cantankerous?

You could never meet a couple as sweet as Cliff and Elma. Their love had blossomed under very difficult circumstances way back around 1972, 1973. Cliff was an ordained Roman Catholic priest: he had to be released from his priestly vows to marry Elma. Elma was a student at Pallotti High School, her parents’ eldest child, and she was Creole. Cliff was Garifuna.

I’d met Elma in 1970 when I lived on Waight Street in the Yarborough area. When I rode my bike from home in the mornings to the downtown city, I had to pass two families who treated me with a lot of love: these were the Earl Smith and the Whittaker families.

Elma was an executive officer of the rump UBAD organization between 1973 and 1974. I use the term “rump” to describe the fact of our organization having been split into two, and she remained with the section under my leadership. She also sold advertisements for our little AMANDALA newspaper, which was a letter press product at the time. Elma was a soldier. Smiling and pleasant and gentle, but a soldier.

She got her Ph.D. in Chicago, and now Elma is a big-time scholar. I am so proud of her, and feel such grief for her at Cliff’s passing. They were a perfect couple. Serious thing.

Elma sent me a wedding photo. I was Cliff’s best man, and Hanifa Reneau was Elma’s maid-of-honor.

Ras Pin, my deepest condolences to you and your siblings on the death of your beloved father.

Relatives and friends of Cliff and Elma, this is how it is. As we live, so shall we die.

Rest in perfect peace, Cliff. My brother from another mother.