Today I met Mario again after a very long time. I expected to see some changes in him, perhaps a little more age showing, but I was struck by how young he still looks. Over lunch, I learned he’s actually three years older than me, though he could easily pass for someone in his forties.
His son Arturo recently became a dad, which makes Mario a grandfather now. I remember Arturo and his younger brother Julio as small boys; these days, both sons handle Mario’s business as naturally as if it were their own. Wanting to be close to his first grandchild, Mario even asked Arturo and his wife to move in so he could see the baby every day.
Mario was born in Mexico, the fourth of eight children in a farming family. As a boy, he used to tell anyone who would listen that he was going to live in the United States one day, a dream so far-fetched that even his parents only smiled and shook their heads. Yet at seventeen, he crossed the border alone. He began with hard labor and, over the years, built a marble fabrication business that once employed forty-five people.
I first met him around the time I began working in real estate, though I couldn’t quite remember how. When I asked him, he reminded me: he had been installing a marble countertop in a kitchen when I walked in. He mentioned he was planning to buy a house, and that’s how our connection began. Since then, we’ve shared many transactions together.
When I think of Mario, what comes to mind first is his ease with life. He often said he never needed much money, and he truly believed that whatever he needed would find its way to him. Back in his school days, he would look from a distance at a bench under a tree and tell himself, _“There must be something there meant for me.”_ And, as if by design, there was always something waiting, at the very least a pencil.
