Luis Antonio

Uber has become my BFF in Mexico City. A most reliable companion, Uber makes sure I get to my destination, safe and sound, with cars that are clean and stink-free. Uber drivers are also usually quite polite, and I have had some rigorous conversations about politics, history, Mexican culture, tourism, and the lot. None of my drivers, though, have caused a greater impact on me than Luis Antonio (last name unknown).

He drove me downtown a few weeks ago from my house. The drive is fairly long and mixed with some traffic (traffic in Mexico City, surprise!), can quickly become boring, so I started chatting right away to make the ride less tedious. I had felt when I had gotten in the car a calm presence that surrounded this man, but didn’t notice until some minutes into the drive Luis Antonio’s eyes in the rear-view mirror. They were warm and welcoming, and they went beyond the typical service-sector friendliness. This man cared. I felt comfortable in an instant. He told me he was familiar with my neighbourhood because he lives not too far away, in a bedroom he rents in a house. I was a little shocked, this man didn’t look uneducated or poor. Why was he renting a bedroom in a neighbourhood that I know isn’t that nice? He continued by commenting that the car is his and is his only source of income at the moment, and I asked if he was semi-retired. He isn’t. He began to share with me the painful details of his life: he had had cancer three times, and that the last time, only a few years ago, left him unable to speak due to the level of the radiation during his chemotherapy. Naturally, he was incapable of doing much work.

THREE TIMES… not to mention a myriad of other potentially fatal ailments which he also partially listed. I started to worry. Who took care of him? Was he married? No, divorced. His wife had left him five years prior and he had given her the house and essentially everything he owned (from what I concluded, he never told me this directly). When I told him that I thought that the situation with his wife seemed unfair, he replied, “I needed to leave her in a place where she could be independent and able to rely only on herself.” Who was this person? Everything that came out of his mouth was both wise and incredibly positive. He didn’t complain a single time about how difficult life had been for him. Instead, he showered praise on his three children, spoke highly of his ex wife, and told me that he currently has a “friend” he goes out with for dinner and some fun — the woman that he had spent countless speech therapy sessions with and had ultimately re-taught him how to speak. New love.

This human created a deep desire in me to improve my attitude towards my own life. I sincerely hope that when I’m his age and I’ve been kicked in the ass in ways that I cannot foresee, I have the same capacity to love as Luis Antonio.