"Someday you'll be a great man."

It still tears my eyes to think about this simple sentence. It was spoken out softly by a great man 37 years ago.

My early teen years in Miami were rough years. At 10 years old, I had freshly arrived as a refugee. Escaping the Cuban revolution of Fidel Castro was downright scary, and the culture shock was great. In addition, that 1960 arrival with my mother, sister, and grandmother did not include my father. At that time, my father's medical practice, and my grandfather's cancer, prevented him from joining us. In addition, it was not unusual for Cuban heads of household to send their families to the States for safekeeping while an unstable political situation stabilized. Not too much later, the Iron Curtain fell, and I did not see my father for many long years.

Another byproduct of the Iron Curtain was the fact that father was not able to send us money. My mother, whose family owned a distillery in Cuba, and who was not familiar with work, was forced to do what she could, which was babysitting. I had several newspaper routes at 11. My grandmother took care of the house. Life continued in a much less grand scale than before. Life was tough.

Most of the Cubans in Miami were in the same predicament. They had left all their wordly possessions in Cuba to arrive in this country. They came with what clothes they had on their back, but with the faith of their forefathers.

The Diocese of Miami began efforts to build a support system for the newly arrived Spanish-speaking Cubans. The St. John Bosco church went up in an old failed Rambler dealership in the heart of the Cuban community, with the help of the Knights of Columbus and us Columbian Squires. While we were working to build that church, the de la Salle Christian Brothers started a school next to Mercy Hospital in bayfront Biscayne Bay.

The real mercy was those brothers taking care of the needy Cuban youth. Few of those kids had their fathers around, and all of them were struggling financially in a language and culture much different from their own. These kids not only needed a father figure but also needed the love, discipline, acknowledgement, motivation, encouragement, confidence, appreciation and support that a father provides. It takes high expectations in order to make young men grow.

I was familiar with de la Salle brothers, since I had attended de la Salle Havana from kindergarten to sixth grade. The Havana brothers were not only fun but also good baseball players. I respected them, specially the ones carrying yardsticks. Now, due to the generosity of the Diocese and my parish, I was able to attend the new school.

As can be expected from the environment, some of the students were in dire need of discipline at the time, whereas others had already been broken in. Thus it can be said that the Miami brothers had a group of youngsters who challenged them. I'm sure it was difficult to compliment and build up those students but yet maintain discipline.

Brother James Bonilla was my eight grade English teacher at de la Salle Miami. He was 24 at the time. Miami was his second assignment after completing his schooling, and was a good fit, since he was bilingual. James loved teaching, and he loved it when the students learned what he taught. He made us think by making it difficult not to. He exasperated me by frequently changing the assignment or the way we reported it. He certainly made us learn English, one way or the other!

Time spend with the brothers was also time spent with a father. Early mornings, at lunch, in between classes, or any free time that we boys had, the brothers would be talking with us. We talked about God, family, work, girls, what things cost... just about anything. Little did we know that we were getting that direction that we needed but did not know how to ask for. We would instead ask the brothers if they wore those long black cassocks outside the school, or if they smoked, or if they'd go drink a beer somewhere. Brother Angel confided in us that he did indeed smoke outside the school... imagine that! We would get a window into reality from the brothers, and hear subtle lessons on how to become a gentleman and a scholar.

The brothers did encourage us and love us. Time spent at school with the brothers was not just character building but was also an escape from the unpleasant realities which awaited us outside the school.

At the time, James was a devotee of St. Francis of Assisi, and his prayer "Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace..." which he summarized and made into his own prayer "Lord, work in me, shine through me, and let me learn to keep giving. The world to God... God to the world, and myself to both." But it was Brother James' words to me one warm day that engraved themselves in my mind in such a way that not only do I still remember them word for word, but I recall a mental picture of Brother James saying them.

After one particularly tough English test, right after lunch, Brother James corralled us into his classroom. He related the fact that the tests we just turned in were missing. Evidently James had momentarily lapsed in his attention and some of our challenging youngsters had taken advantage of this and stolen his tests! Since he figured that these youngsters just had not had much time to hide the tests, it was our assignment to find them.

Some of us looked in the garbage cans, some in the classrooms, and some around outside the buildings... and some just went through the motions but were not really interested in the task in hand. Youngsters were frisked, desks were gone through, garbage cans were dissected.

I put myself in the shoes of one of these youngsters and tried to determine his range of motion in the time allowed. I started to look for footprints in the sand around the far back of the exterior buildings... and there they were, right next to the middle building's footings, buried in an obviously disturbed area of sand. I yelped with joy at having found them, at which time I was met by three disgruntled youngsters with a threatening countenance.

While listening to their threats, I quickly pushed through them and met Brother James at his classroom... all the way escorted by the three youngsters.

James took in the situation, listening to my excited ravings, and seeing the three escorts dissipate. He looked me in the eye, put his hand on my shoulder, waited while I calmed down, said: "Such courage... Wilfredo... someday, you'll be a great man," and thanked me.

At that time, I was proud of myself, and appreciated being thanked, but did not fully hear what he said. I said nothing then but just paused while I caught my breath. It took me several days to fully understand his encouraging words and his expectations. If there's something in life that I relished growing up, it was listening to those words. No one could take those words away from me.

Of course, after school that afternoon, on my way home, I got the expected beating by the three waiting kids. But those blows healed long ago, whereas Brother James' words have lasted to this day.

Brother James Bonilla died October 1997 while Principal at Bishop Loughlin High School in Brooklyn. His spirit remains with us all.

Willy Albanes is a rocket scientist in Huntsville, Alabama