Kokkinochori Kavala, the village of Vassilis Karras is waiting for him today at noon at 12:00 to say his last goodbye, on his loneliest last journey on this earth.
The word "lonely" is relative as a concept since many friends who loved his heavy, soulful voice are expected to be present today.
They did it yesterday from noon until the afternoon, after thousands of people passed by the Holy Church of Agia Sophia in Thessaloniki to leave a flower along with a tear and show him how much they loved him.
In the exodus procession there was plenty of emotion for a true "lord" of folk song, who spoke to the souls of the people who loved him because he was primarily one of them.
Tragic figures at the ceremony were his wife Christina and their daughter Irini, who couldn't stand it when the bouzoukis said goodbye to "Vasila" as his friends and fanatical fans called him with "Nichta xelogiastra" and "I'm not going anywhere".
Even an employee of the funeral home, carrying the coffin with his colleagues, who is familiar by profession with such difficult times, could not hold back his tears when a Pontic song was heard.
Everywhere you saw tearful looks, faces saddened by the loss of a pure-blooded folk performer who suffered from cancer without giving up.
His colleagues spoke with words of love for the Vassilis they met, while his musicians were all there along with the common people, who broke up, fell in love or reunited with his songs.
One of them says characteristically: "When your years pass and when the nights grow old, you will have me. And if you see that you miss me, put my portrait on the wall, don't cry for me, don't cry for me."
Except that yesterday the whole of Greece was crying for Vassilis Karras, who was not aged by the nights, nothing aged him all these years, but he lost the battle to an insidious disease that he fought until the end with too much dignity.
His escape on the eve of this year's Christmas, plunged all of Greece into sadness that will never again hear from his mouth the famous "Good evening and good night".
The phrase that caused delirium in people who loved this heavy voice that expressed woes, sorrows and the capsule of love to the maximum extent.
From the North to the South, everyone was there
Yesterday at the exodus service held at the Holy Church of Agia Sophia in Thessaloniki, it was their own voices that joined from the North to the South to bid him farewell.
At the funeral that he delivered at the request of the family, the secretary of the KO of New Democracy, Stavros Kalafatis, spoke with tender words about his friend, saying among other things: "He said it all with the songs, his support for those in need with the inviolable condition never to be learned. He said it all with his love for Christina and Irene. From the North to the South, Vassilis gave love and taught morals for more than 40 years. He knew how to touch the soul of the Greek. In our hearts he is the last great folk singer. Thank you for the honor of being yours and the honor your family has given me to be here, in front of you. I convey the Prime Minister's sincere condolences. For all this, my Santa, you're not going anywhere, you're going to stay here!"
Kostas Botsolis, the doctor who had taken care of him, emphasized that few would endure what the performer went through, who did not want the details of the battle he fought all these months to be known.
He always had by his side the Christina of his heart, the only woman he loved, the one who waited for him to come home every morning and his daughter Irene, the girl he adored.
He had many others close to him in what proved to be an uneven battle, which did not let him return to the tracks once more.
He managed to record his last album, just before he passed away as a seasoned collector of the night, who always wanted to sing into a wired microphone.
He even wound it in a circle in his hand, and only in recent years has he given in to wireless microphone technology, this old fashioned of the dance floor.
Maybe because he was an old fashioned singer, with a voice and a voice that when he was once asked what a man is for him, he replied with a smile: You are a man if you act. If you don't act, you're not a man!"
Source: protothema.gr