Editor’s note: This is the time of year when many of us think about and honor friends and family who are no longer with us. It’s an especially difficult time for Miguel A. Silva Sr., who lost his son, Miguel Jr., on July 16. The younger Silva — who was born on Halloween — was riding his bicycle on Broadway when a truck struck and killed him. He was 29. This is his tribute to his oldest child.
This Halloween will be very sad for me and my family. A short happy-sad-tragic story:
Before my wife Anabel and I got married, Halloween did not have any meaning. That changed pretty quickly.
After a year of marriage, my first son, Miguel A. Silva Jr., was born Oct. 31 — and that is when Halloween became very important to us.
Our family grew to include two more beautiful members, David and Anthony. As a family, we used to go to Phoenix for Halloween. We visited family, went trick-or-treating, looked at the fancy haunted houses, and of course, went to the shopping malls.
As time flew by, my first son went through high school, where he met Karla, the young woman who would later become his wife. He was named valedictorian in 2003, and then decided to study finance at the University of Arizona. He was always an “A” student, and graduated in 2007. He then wanted a master’s degree, and went all the way to Manchester, England, to get it. He graduated after presenting an interesting mathematical finance thesis, earning his master’s in 2008.
When he came back to the United States, the economic situation did not look good, and even though many acquaintances predicted that he would not get a job, he was very confident. Although he was competing against candidates with more experience, in December he got a job with Sterling Investment Management. I remember that day as if it were today. He was on his way home to Nogales from his interview in Tucson when he learned he had the position. He was very emotional because he had worked so hard for so long.
When we would talk, he was always enthusiastically telling the family that he was becoming the right hand of the business, always talking about raises, and trying to explain to us how the financial markets behaved and operated.
He also became a very trusted role model to his younger brothers, and they followed in his footsteps and looked to him for counsel.
Very soon, he bought his house and the car he had dreamed of, a Mercedes Benz. He kept on with his studies and obtained a higher degree as a chartered financial analyst. It seemed that he had accomplished his main career goals, and after seven years of courtship, he and Karla got married in 2014.
My wife and I visited him and Karla at least once a month. He was always eager to take us all out for lunch, or they would come to Nogales for the weekend or Christmas. He became the family counselor, and was respected by all. He was always very positive, smart, had no addictions, loved sports, was an excellent electric guitar player, and always had big plans. He was brilliant, a true shining star. I could write pages of positive things about him. He started cycling early this year, and whenever he had a chance, he was biking, often with his wife.
My longtime dream — and my wife’s — was to have our three boys finish college. Miguel’s brother, David, earned a degree in civil engineering last year from the University of Arizona — Miguel and Karla were there to support him. Anthony, inspired by his oldest brother, received a finance degree from Cornell University in May. Miguel made travel reservations for the whole family to go to Ithaca, New York, to support and congratulate Anthony on his graduation.
Since Anthony also landed a good position at Wilmington Trust, he needed to dress well for the job. That first week of July, Miguel took his little brother — along with his parents — to shop in Tucson. We went out to eat, and as we said goodbye to Miguel and his wife, we saw how excited he was for his younger brother to start his career.
My wife and I were very happy to have arrived at a time when finally our three children were professionals with good jobs and big future plans. We never imagined that visit was going to be the last day we would see Miguel’s smile and hear his voice.
Exactly a week after, on the morning of July 11, Karla called my wife and told her that Miguel had just been in a traffic accident while cycling. He was in an induced coma for five days. He could not recover, and finally died on July 16 from the injuries he suffered.
As his wife told me at the hospital the day he died — it was too beautiful to be true.
He was going to be 30 years old this Halloween, now a terrible day for the whole Silva family.
Personally, while I am still alive, I will always try to keep his memory alive. With a great emptiness in my mind and heart, I will keep watching, every year, the trick-and-treaters marching on Oct. 31 as if they were paying a respectful tribute to the soul of my always-full-of-surprises, beloved son.
May God bless him and all the good people who were around him during his beautiful life: his wife, brothers, mother, sisters-in-law Hanna and Marisol, friends, teachers, co-workers, his great boss and mentor John Payne at Sterling Financial Management, and finally, the Silva and Wong families.
Thanks, God, for letting us have this beautiful person among us, unfortunately for too brief a time.
As he always said, to support and give strength to others in order to improve or accomplish something: ¡Echale ganas!
