Felipe and I met in the around the year 2000,. At that time I was in personal trainer and did his “initial assessment”. I recall joking with him that he had some of the tightest hamstrings I had ever seen. We soon went to coffee, and like so many people who crossed paths with Felipe, became friends. Over the years I had the pleasure of getting to know Delia and Sandra and he often proudly spoke of his sons. He became family to me. The thing that struck me most about Felipe, and what made me nominate him as my mentor, whether he wanted to or not, (and of course, he did) was the way he treated people. No matter where we went - coffee, the grocery store, lunch, when he was talking to workers around his house - he treated everybody with an extreme level of respect, courtesy, and graciousness. We would walk into a Starbucks or The Coffee Bean (which he preferred) and when the employees saw him, their faces would light up. He usually knew them by name and they knew his,  and he would speak to them in Spanish if they spoke Spanish. Several years ago, I believe in the late 2000s, I remember within a very short timespan he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, lost most of his vision, and had one other serious medical issue that I cannot recall at the moment. His demeanor and the way he treated people never changed through his “Dark night of the soul” as he called it. He was an example to me of treating others as I would want to be treated and putting others before myself. In one of our more serious conversations, during his last stay at the hospital, he commented that if the world would live out Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount, we would have no problems and the world would be at peace.  As I’m sure he told so many other people, he would often end our conversations with, “Be kind to yourself, Dan”. Reading his obituary essay, I’m confident he helped and had an impact on hundreds, if not thousands. But even if it was only one, I am that one. I will continue to strive to be as gracious, humble, and kind to others as Felipe was to everybody, most of all me. I love you and miss you, Felipe. Your amigo, Dan.