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Buenos Aires, Argentina | THE INDEPENDENT | Two of Diego Maradona’s five children used social media on Friday to bid an emotional farewell to their father, who died of a heart attack on Wednesday aged 60.
“I was always very afraid of my death, but today I’m not anymore because I know that this is going to be the moment that I will see you and hug you again,” said Dalma Maradona, the first of two daughters that the Argentine football legend had with ex-wife Claudia Villafane.
“I already miss you ‘pa’! I’m going to carry on here, without the piece of my heart that you took with you. I’m going to love and defend you all my life … I am destroyed but I will get by. Wait for me there.”
The words were accompanied by a photograph of Dalma as a child placing a small flower inside the sock of her father.
The 33-year-old actress revealed a wish to again perform a duet of the song “Y como es el”, by Spanish songwriter Jose Luis Perales, with her dad, as they had done in the past.
“Wait for me there. We’re going to see each other again. I’m going to practice “Y como es el” so that when we see each other we can sing it together again. Well, you will sing it beautifully and I’ll shout it.”
Dalma added that her 20-month old daughter, Roma, already had great affection for her grandfather.
“If your granddaughter wants to make a video call to you like in the past, I’m going to die inside, but rest assured I’ll tell her exactly who you were, who you are and who you’re going to be forever,” she said.
“She already loves you. Because you were like that … I’m picking up my pieces and can’t imagine what my life will be like without you. I really can’t. But here I am with the best husband in the world and a daughter who is going to make me carry on.
“Life is fleeting so we’ll see each other again soon. I’ll carry daisies to decorate your football socks and please look at me again with that love you see in the photo. I love you always.”
Diego Maradona Junior, who was born to Italian Cristiana Sinagra during Maradona’s time at Napoli in the mid-1980s, said he deeply admired his father and would miss him greatly.
“How happy I was with you … you couldn’t imagine it, just looking at you next to me I felt invincible. How much I am going to miss this hug ‘dad of my life’, you cannot even imagine it remotely, how much I am going to miss sitting with you to watch a game of our beloved Napoli. And my children? How will they cope without such a loving grandfather,” Diego Junior said.
“I promise you that they will always be on your side, that they will always defend you and that they will always pull out their chest talking about their grandfather. Dad captain of my heart, you will never die because I will love you until my last breath.”
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XINHUA
