Tony Roman's Funeral

It is with great sadness that I learned last week that my cousin Tony Roman passed away.  Tony was a famous musician, songwriter and movie producer in Montreal Canada.  Recently, he produced two feature films that were very popular in Canada, "Ladies Room" and "Camping Sauvage."

A couple of months ago, he came down to South Florida to visit his aunts Flavia (my mother) and aunt Ileana (my aunt as well).  We got together for dinner at my aunt's house and a couple of days later, Valerie and I went down to Miami to visit him at his hotel.

Tony knew he had a problem at that time but wasn't sure what it was.  Later he found out that he had liver cancer.  The end came pretty quickly after that.

During our visit in Miami, Tony was very excited about a couple of projects he was working on 1) a history of the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles, and 2) A documentary about the life of Sam Kinison.

Tony was always working on some project or another.  He was definitely driven to succeed and he helped a lot of other people succeed as well.

The funeral was held at Notre Dame de la Defense in Montreal.  That was the same church where my mom was baptized and my parents were married.  In fact, all the important religious events for my mom's family happened there.

The most touching part of the funeral mass was at the end when the audience spontaneously broke into a thunderous applause.  Up until that moment, few people cried.  However, hearing that last applause for Tony made everyone break down.  It was very special.

Afterwards, we got together for a reception at a restaurant where I took these photos.