I watched him, rubbing my eyes. I couldn’t believe it. Yes he was upset. But he spoke calmly and tried, as rationally as he could, to answer the questions of the frantic reporters. What was he describing? How his son’s assassination was relayed to him.
He answered a stream of questions about his son Pavlos Fyssas who was no longer alive, the victim of the unspeakable murder in Amfiali.
Such was the father’s calm, I first thought he was simply a passer-by who happened to witness the incident. But he was his own father. The more I think about it the more it shakes me.
I bow to this man. I praise him with my whole existence. Because you need to have a very great soul, extraordinary dignity and great generosity to control your temper as you are faced with the ultimate loss, the loss of your own child.
And maybe in that way, this man, the father, is perhaps without knowing it himself – or us knowing it – giving a lesson to us all.
by Yiannis Zoumboulakis
translated by pd, original text "To Vima" http://www.tovima.gr/opinions/article/?aid=530816