When life gave him lemons...

...Rudy Persaud used them to make other people's lives better in a life filled with love and laughter

By: Danielle Da Silva

Fresh lemons were always plentiful and close at hand in the Persaud household.

For decades the fridge was stocked with the tart, aromatic citrus fruit, the main ingredient in the elixirs served daily by Ramcharran Persaud.

Known as Dad to his three kids, as Coach to many in Windsor Park and as Rudy to most everyone else, he swore by the simple lemon to cure what ails.

"If he heard you cough, or you were sneezing or you said ‘I’m not feeling great,’ he’d go grab a glass of water and a lemon, and squeeze it into the water for you and say ‘Sip on this for the rest of the day, you’ll be feeling great," recalls middle child Tim Persaud.

Lemon juice was also served up by the teaspoon, or blended in with carrot juice and garlic and, sometimes, stirred into water jugs on the sideline where Rudy would spend weeknights coaching youth soccer or football.

"Some of my friends, that’s one of the things they remember, this magic concoction he would bring. They called it his homemade Gatorade," Tim says with a chuckle. "His lemon thing — he definitely loved it."

There was science behind his devotion to lemon juice, says Rudy’s eldest son, Anil. His dad was a biochemist and had done his homework, but as with most of his father’s many passions, Rudy was mostly interested in helping those around him thrive.

"He really wanted to affect as many lives as he could, in a positive way, in whatever way that was," says Michelle Persaud, Rudy’s youngest. "If there was anything he could do to make someone’s day better, he would do it."

Rudy died in Winnipeg on June 8 at the age of 77.

The proud family man and grandfather from Guyana was born to parents Parbodial and Gladys Persaud on Sept. 13, 1942, in the coastal village of Whim in the Berbice region, where he was raised with his five siblings. As a teen, Rudy was a youth leader at the local Lutheran church and as a young adult, took up teaching English and physical education at Kildonan Scott School.

"Because he believed in education so much, and he had all this knowledge, he wanted to make sure that he could learn all he could and he could help teach the other kids about the world," Anil says.

Rudy became headmaster at the school, and throughout the day he would send love letters by student-courier to his lifelong flame, Chandrawatie — or Sandy — who was also a teacher. Their courtship had started years earlier when Rudy crashed his motorcycle into the ditch outside the house where Sandy and her family lived. As the story goes, he was showing off, trying to get her attention, lost control of the bike and the whole family went out to see the damage.

"From that day on, it was love," Anil says.

In 1970, the couple married and immigrated shortly after to Regina with little in their pockets and their first-born on the horizon.

Sandy, who in a final love letter to Rudy she shared with the Free Press, recalls following her heart on an unknown grand adventure, one that would be filled with the blessings of children and the shared hardships of illness.

"I will miss our late night movies, our day-long cricket matches and the endless effortless conversations we had," Sandy wrote. "Fifty years later, I would give anything to go back and do it all again but this time taking more time to cherish the little moments we had."

Rudy began studying biochemistry at the University of Regina and worked any gig he could to fund his studies and support his new family while juggling courses.

"For him, it was always a means to improve his life and his family’s life," Tim says. "That was always his thing: always try improving things, improving yourself, improving somebody’s life, trying to do things the best you can."

Before he completed his degree, Rudy landed a job with Chevron and, in 1975, the company moved him to Winnipeg to take on the role of plant manager at its Dugald Road asphalt plant.

While he found gainful employment with Chevron, and its successor Koch Materials, Rudy was constantly having to prove to co-workers — predominantly white men — why a person of colour and an immigrant was worthy of the job, Anil says.

"Some people didn’t like him because he was that coloured guy that came in and took that white guy’s job," Anil says. "I remember as a kid, he said it doesn’t matter your colour — if you’re black, white, purple, pink or green — if you’re smart enough and you’ve got the knowledge and work ethic, you will always get paid well and have a good job."

"In current times it’s been interesting to reflect back on my dad," Michelle adds, "and this is something that definitely has been more poignant to myself recently: how in a time when racial diversity was not favoured, Dad kind of just went at it both feet in and said, ‘Here I am.’"

As a way to support other newcomers and celebrate his culture, Rudy helped found the Guyanese Association of Manitoba shortly after his arrival in Winnipeg. He served as president for years, supported the organization throughout the decades and spearheaded a scholarship for Guyanese youth.

"He has given his heart and his commitment and we can certainly thank him to give us that," says Kamta Roy Singh, a current director of the association.

"He was a guy who was always very vigilant to help, to assist in whatever means to make that successful. With every function we had, he was assisting either physically or mentally, and always happy to do it, always smiling away."

Rudy was also a constant fixture at association socials and always on the dance floor with Sandy, his "partner in crime." He preferred soca and dance hall tunes, but so long as the song had a rhythm, Rudy was moving.

"For him. dancing was free game, any time," Tim says. "He would go out there and try to get everyone going."

Debbie Buhler met Rudy 35 years ago at Winakwa Community Centre when she volunteered to manage her son’s soccer team. Rudy had signed up to coach (he coached all three of his children’s teams) as Tim was on the roster, too.

"We travelled all over the place with our little team and families," Buhler says. "He was always the life of the party and he always had the jokes. He always made you laugh, so you always felt like family."

From racing down the highway back to the city after an out-of-town tournament to going to bat for his athletes, Rudy turned the mundane of minor sports into a thrill, Buhler says. While their friendship continued after community club soccer ceased, Buhler last saw Rudy when they ran into each other at the supermarket, a short while before severe dementia would force Rudy to move into a care home.

Rudy didn’t recognize Buhler but remembered her son when she mentioned him by name — the "red-headed, left-footed kicker who was the secret weapon,’ she recalls him saying.

"He remembered him but he could not remember me," she says. "I said ‘Rudy, you’re one of my dearest friends,’ and I felt so privileged he remembered my son."

The COVID-19 pandemic made visiting Rudy in his last days a challenge for his children; Tim lives in the city, but Michelle is in Calgary and Anil lives in Edmonton. But from afar, Anil and Michelle have turned to one of their dad’s favourite pastimes to celebrate his life. Rudy loved toiling in his sprawling backyard garden, Michelle says, and recalls his delight in sharing his bounty of tomatoes, cucumbers and carrots with others.

"Being out in nature and working in the garden and in soil, after he passed away that’s pretty much what I did the day after," Michelle says. "I spent the whole day in the garden, knowing that you would always find my dad in the garden when he was home.

"There’s a certain amount of joy that comes in giving to others and I think that was really something that you saw in Dad. He gained so much happiness by being able to give of himself, and his time and his knowledge, and his expertise, and just whatever he could give to others. Being able to give back in whatever way just brought so much joy to my dad."

danielle.dasilva@freepress.mb.ca