RIP Miguel Bermeo
Hello and good day!
Jorge Bermeo was the manager of our cacao processing facility for several years. His younger brother Miguel, pictured above, came to work for us and was a wonderful member of our team for a long, long time.
Miguel was a handsome, sweet, thoughtful young man who wasn't loud or brash like some of the other young men who have worked for us over the years. He was humble and polite and an extremely hard worker. He always had a smile on his face and was proactive about doing whatever he could to improve the operation.
A few years back, Miguel was married and had two daughters with his wife. A couple of years ago, he became very sick with liver disease, and it didn't look like he was going to make it.
Our company donated a bunch of money to help pay his medical bills. We offered to match what folks in the community were willing to put up and it ended up being more than enough. Miguel made an unexpected recovery and was doing really well for a while.
Unfortunately, he recently came down with a lung ailment and passed a couple of weeks ago.He was in his early thirties and leaves behind a wife and two young daughters.
On my brother's most recent trip to Peru, Miguel did all the driving, and it was a blessing for Brian to spend time with Miguel one last time.
We plan to help Miguel's family financially and this is a big part of the reason we started our word-of-mouth program.
Miguel was the breadwinner for his family out in campo and it is very hard for single mothers to earn a living out there. His wife and daughters have a tough road ahead of them. Thankfully, they have a loving family they can lean on.
For our part, being able to set aside money to help campo families is a very important part of our mission. Many people die out there from illnesses that are easily preventable in American hospitals.
We have a picture of Miguel hanging on the wall in one of our retail shops. It shows him dumping fermented cacao out onto a wooden table that he helped build.
I planned on accompanying this sad news with a story about a practical joke the team once played on Brian, but I now realize that these two stories don't go together at all. I thought I could lighten up the bad news with something more upbeat.
But I suppose that sad news sometimes just needs to be stewed in. You aren't supposed to lighten it up because it needs to be confronted.
On another note, my brother and I recorded a podcast recently and I just put it online. You can listen to it and watch it here, https://youtu.be/rPRq__ODJTY.
Thank you so much for your time today.
I hope that you have a truly blessed day!
Adam
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