Madrid (EFE) that both apologized and “there were no reproaches.”
Díaz wanted to explain to almost fifty media gathered in Madrid how his fight to be recognized by his father, through positive DNA tests, ended in a word that he longed to hear and that Benítez completed in a sentence: “Son, everything comes, now we are here”.
The meeting took place at the initiative of Díaz, who after seeing how other union attempts failed, set up by third parties, took “the reins” and took advantage of a telephone that “came across the road” to follow what “his heart told him” ”. “I told myself, my goodness, what am I going to do, I can find myself with a no, but nothing happens because I have lived with no all my life”, he has recalled.
From there, the child that his mother, María Dolores, had taken to Córdoba with the slogan “let’s go look for your father”, achieved the “skin-to-skin” meeting 54 years later, a short time passed; It would take longer to be made public. “I congratulated him on Father’s Day last year,” she revealed.
After several phone calls, a first meeting was arranged, attended by their respective partners: his, the Venezuelan Virginia Troconis, and Mariángeles Quesada, whom Díaz has said is “an angel on earth” and one of the people who made the first family hug possible.
The son of Cordoba arrived “trembling”, on the verge of “fainting” from which only his wife saved him. Halfway down the driveway to the farm, his father was waiting for him, who received him with the expected “son, everything is here, we are here”. “At that moment we were both born, the rest no longer makes sense. I heard him say son and it stuck inside me ”.
In their first in-person conversation, they apologized to each other: “I needed to say ‘I’m sorry if I’ve done something in my life that I shouldn’t, but circumstances have forced me.’ He told me, ‘forgive me’”; From then on, the words, looks and gestures of affection were exchanged “without reproach” and there was “understanding from minute zero”.
If Benítez received him as a “son”, Díaz asked his permission to call him “dad”: “Come on, ‘p’alante’”, he authorized him.
Emotion in words Manuel Díez
Manuel Díaz admired his father as a bullfighter, but assures that as a person he has exceeded all his expectations: “He is an exceptional human being, he captivated me.” So much so that he let himself be carried away by his “inner child” and snuggled into his chest, he has recounted in a long exposition in which he has been moved on a couple of occasions.
Many more have followed that moment, almost always talking about bulls and showing mutual recognition; He has also been able to hug the patriarch to his grandchildren Alba, Triana and Manuel. In fact, El Cordobés Jr. does not rule out a meeting between his mother and his father, and between him and the rest of his brothers, since he only maintains a relationship with fellow bullfighter Julio Benítez.
“When I talk to him, I’m not talking about shared time, but about time gained,” said the person who acknowledged that it would be “a satisfaction” if his father went to see him fight in his year of farewell to the bullring, as well as sharing experiences in the field.
“History will continue, it is proposing an infinite number of things to me because it is an earthquake and I am not going to miss it,” he added.
The officialization of this relationship postponed for 54 years occurred, at the initiative of Benítez, on February 14 in Córdoba, where he was honored on the 20th anniversary of his recognition as the fifth Caliph of Bullfighting. Father and son agreed to keep it a secret earlier in order to enjoy privacy from him.
The son of Cordoba was “very nervous”, knowing the “commotion that was going to form”, but there were two certainties that nothing could eclipse at the expected moment: “The happiness of my father and the truth of my mother”.
