HELLO Wendell, why is everybody being so funny about this? Why are they referring to you in the third person, as if youu2019re not in the room? Youu2019re always going to be with us, you know, continuing your work, completing your half- sentences, carrying on about the cutting of trees and the loss of traditions. We are never going to be away from you, through the Goa you loved.

Yes, everybody and his or her brother- in- law say they love Goa. Only you showed us how to love and what to do about this love. How, despite busy schedules, trips abroad and creating imaginative concepts out of the wispy, salty air of your sandy land, you built castles, palaces and houses filled with memory. How, under the crunchy, deep red soil of Goau2019s earth, there was a deep- rooted love that grew and grew and grew and taught each one of us what it was to grow, to nurture love.