Maria Lúcia do Nascimento, 78, Pelé’s sister, said her last meeting with Dico, as family and close friends call the King, had a farewell tone. She was with him on December 21, eight days before his death, when she went to visit him at Albert Einstein Hospital, in São Paulo.
“He was very calm. We talked a little bit, but I could see that he was feeling it, he already knew he was leaving. He is very religious. He said: ‘It’s in God’s hands’. And I said: ‘That’s right. , he knows the right moment'”, he said in an interview with ESPN this Friday (30), in Santos.
For her, football is going to die a little, along with the former player. “What he represented, what he lived in the world of football, is very difficult to overcome. It’s a very enlightening thing. It’s a choice that God made for Edson, of enlightenment”
“He was what he was without having to beat his chest, and he was recognized the way he was by the whole world,” he added.
Younger than her brother, Maria Lúcia also said that Pelé and Dico are different people for her, and each of them marked her life in a different way.
“He helped the family a lot, [e gente de] outside the family too. He has a very big story of help. Not only material, but being present when the person needed a conversation,” he said.
About the relationship with her older brother, she spoke of the time with him in childhood: “I don’t remember having any disagreements. After more adults, yes, but never letting things go forward. Always with love, friendship and respect each other”.
Asked about the reaction of her mother, Celeste Arantes, who turned 100 in November, Maria Lúcia said that she did not tell about Pelé’s death, this Thursday (29), but spoke about her brother’s state of health with the matriarch at other times.
“We talked, but she doesn’t know. She’s fine, but she’s in her own little world. She doesn’t know, or she knows… Sometimes I say: ‘Dico is like this, let’s pray for him, right, Mom?’ sometimes she opens her eye, but she is not conscious”.
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