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SIEMPRE GUILLERMO

Guillermo Rosales, a modern-day St. Francis
By Peggy Ann Bliss
  
Guillermo Rosales
Guillermo Rosales, friend to all animals and the founding partner of Fundación Valentina, has been gone five years, but he is as present today as he was the first day I met him in New York in 1976.
 
The animals, who depended on him completely, moved on to other loving homes or, as in the case of Valentina and Angel, still live with me.
 
Three of his favorites, Conca, Taíno, and Vita followed him to that place where animals and people happily co-exist.
 
The people who were dazzled by Guillermo’s tenderness to four-footed creatures still speak of him often. I, myself, invoke his name every day.
 
Guillermo helped people who needed help, but he was especially drawn to people who helped animals. He traveled to San German to visit a woman who adopted a stray Santurce cat named Chaplin, and he climbed into a water-filled cave in Río Grande to rescue nine newborn puppies.
 
Guillermo in 1988 as Segismundo from Calderón’s “La Vida es Sueño,” with Maruja Más.
He couldn’t say no to anyone, as when a few months before his death, a neighbor dropped off 11 stray dogs in one day. Six of them were newborns, and Guillermo cured them of mange and rickets. Eventually, after his death, they were sent to the states to be adopted, thanks to Save a Sato volunteers.
 
Every rescue meant more mouths to feed, fewer hours of sleep and more litter boxes to clean. It meant sweeping floors and hosing driveways more frequently, and daily bathing and brushing of dogs and cats. Every new animal meant interminable waits in veterinarians’ lobbies and sleepless nights in animal emergency clinics.
 
Guillermo taught abused animals to trust, even sleeping on the floor with the dogs to help them get over their fears.
 
Love like this between Arella Fernandez, Guillermo's granddaugher, and a little chick, is innocent, the way it should be
Except for Vita, his favorite was Contessa, the dog with a withered foreleg he found rummaging in a garbage can. He worried about her fear and her skinniness, and laughed when she rough and tumbled with her playmates on her three good legs. Guillermo supervised her vitamins, to fatten her up enough to have her useless limb amputated, but after Guillermo’s death she was adopted by a family who insisted she keep the leg.
 
His other favorite was Tramp, a furry Benjie-like mutt he picked up at a Bayamón shopping center. The still scruffy, but fatter, Tramp, lived with attorney Joan del Valle, and recently was the guest of honor at the gala concert at the Episcopal Cathedral to celebrate Valentina’s Nine Lives.
 
Joan, who adopted Tramp after Guillermo died because she knew he had little chance of adoption, was awarded the 2005 Vita Award for saving a dog’s life. Sadly, Tramp, who was about 10 years old, died in September, after a very good life.
 
Whenever Guillermo left home and returned, the undisciplined large dogs showed their adoration by jumping on him. Instead of scolding, he would grab their forepaws and dance around the driveway with them.
 
Guillermo and Raul Julia, New York City 1973
Much as he loved his dogs, and even a chicken he rescued, Guillermo’s weakness was cats, including the sleek black Taíno (Tiny), whom we rescued in October 1993 at an Aguadilla grocery store.
 
Like any good black cat, Taíno died on Halloween, after 12 good years with Guillermo and others of us who loved him.
 
Valentina, who became a personality, was Guillermo’s special rescue on Valentine’s Day in 1997. He loved this beautiful snowshoe cat, whom he spoiled on the gourmet food he bought for her with his slim Social Security allowance.
 
Although we immediately sterilized our rescued animals, Guillermo was especially moved by the plight of the pregnant females we brought home to give birth in a warm, dry place, usually his bathtub, or his closet. Just before he died we had a regular maternity ward with three litters simultaneously, 17 kittens in all. We also nursed several newborn orphans, giving them formula every two hours, but some of them died in our arms, anyway. When one litter began to die one by one after apparently thriving, he wouldn’t let me nurse the survivors. He wanted to take all the pain, responsibility and heartbreak on himself. His suffering was hard to watch, but he always knew there were more waiting for his healing hands.
 
Guillermo with former San Juan Mayor Felisa Rincón
One fragile and very sick kitten, weighing about two ounces did thrive as we nursed him together. Guillermo named him Catracho, which is the nickname Hondurans call themselves.  The yellow kitten thrived, and was about 4 months old when his benefactor died. The Old San Juan family that adopted him changed his name to Soleil, or sun, an appropriate name for a very special baby.
 
Guillermo was always happy when a kitten was adopted by a good family, but he worried like the father of a teenage girl on her first date when he relinquished one.  Now in a very special place, he is no doubt taking inventory on all his children below, and hoping that their adoptive parents did the right thing so that he will never become a grandfather. 2006


Saved from a fire for a higher purpose
  
This homily (in translation from the Spanish)  was spoken by Episcopal priest and district attorney César Mercado during a mass on the second anniversary of Guillermo Rosales' death (2003) in the St. John the Baptist’s Episcopal Cathedral in Santurce.
Guillermo and pal
Guillermo Rosales Mejía was born June 25, 1927 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, Central America.  When he was  4, he lost his mother in a fire which burned him badly. After that, he believed God had saved his life for some higher purpose.
 
He went to Mexico to study agronomy, returning to his homeland to work in agrarian reform.
 
But it did not take him long to recognize the political corruption in his country.
 
“I thought my mother had saved me to become president of the republic,” he confessed once. “But I could not find any honest men to be in my cabinet."
 
With his privileged voice, Guillermo became a radio announcer and interviewed personalities about agriculture and the inequities in rural communities. Under the pseudonym El Existencialista, he spoke of some of the injustice he saw in his country.
 
Fed up with politics, he threw himself into art, acting in the university theater in Tegucigalpa and on radio and televisión in the capital city in the 1950s and ‘60s.
 
In the ‘70s, he emigrated to New York, where he workd with The Puerto Rican Traveling Theater directed by Puerto Rican actress Miriam Colón, and learned his profession with the beloved Puerto Ricans Pablo Cabrera, the director and actress Iris Martínez, among others.
 
He supplemented his income as an actor working as an emergency medical technician, an embalmer and a street vendor of ice cream, among other trades. After marrying Peggy in New York, he came with her to Puerto Rico and worked here in theater, television, radio and commercials. His face was well known by the soap opera fanatics, especially elderly women and young girls, who often stopped him on the street.
 
Guillermo with his
favorite novelist Enrique Laguerre at Bellas Artes
He also managed farms in Toa Alta and Aibonito and worked as a journalist and photographer for Puerto Rico Business and other publications. He collaborated greatly with Peggy and traveled with her to all parts of the island, as well as Spain, Italy, Mexico and the Dominican Republic. He knew a lot about Puerto Rican culture and its icons, without neglecting to promote his own often unknown culture.
 
When Guillermo could no longer find work in San Juan, he returned to New York, although he was over 65, and studied office skills and even Japanese.
 
He was interested in everybody, and everybody considered him their friend. He was an old-fashioned gentleman, but with a totally contemporary vision of freedom and equality. He always said he felt part of [the Episcopal Church] because the people were so friendly and concerned about each other.
 
In 1993, Guillermo survived a terrible illness caused by a bacteria in his lungs. It was not yet his time to go. He returned to the island for what would be the noblest period of his life -- the last eight years.
 
In 1994, when Peggy broke her back, he accompanied her in all her operations and took care of everything in the house, washing, ironing, and caring for the animals. When Peggy’s mother broke her hip three months later, Guillermo took care of both of them.
 
It was during this time that he became a full-time cat rescuer. It all began with one person in the neighborhood who tried to poison them, and the rest is history. In 1998, he and Peggy created Fundación Valentina, in honor of their poster cat, rescued on Valentine’s Day. As Don Guillermo in the book about Valentina, he took care of the rescued kitten with dedication and tenderness, and showed the children how to treat animals. He cured hundreds of cats and found them homes. He also served as president of the condominium and worked night and day to create a healthy and peaceful environment.
 
Guillermo snapped by Peggy
In 1999, when the couple moved to the mountains of Bayamón near Naranjito, Guillermo began to pick up dogs along Route 167. He bathed them, medicated them, and even learned to give them injections, especially for mange. He feared no dog and rejected no dog, no matter how filthy and disgusting he seemed.
 
When the animals died, as they would, he buried them in the back yard, always inviting one or two of their canine or feline companions and putting classical music on the portable radio.
 
Guillermo showed special tenderness for cats, especially when living a bottle to an orphaned kitten every two hours all night long.
 
He died under cloudy circumstances, from a fall from the roof, investigating an illegal act by a malevolent neighbor. Even at 74, he climbed up there to protect his home, as he had also climbed up there to protect a cat fleeing the dogs. He was unafraid of work and of danger.
 
That time, Guillermo’s time had come, and he faced it with courage. Now he is with God, and we remain to remember him with love and follow his example of understanding and action for others.

“I will always remember Guillermo sitting patiently in Dr. Rivera's office with a dog or a cat or several of each. Time always passed faster when talking to Guillermo about our adventures rescuing animals. He was such a kind human being. I was so happy to hear from the families that adopted shy little Queenie and the other lovely, bowlegged satita that Guillermo rescued. Both dogs were with Guillermo the last time I saw him at the veterinary clinic.” Doris Vita, El Salvador/Puerto Rico