LOOKING BACK : The People...

It’s her California friends--her “new family”--Carmen Marsach misses most now that she is home in Puerto Rico.

“Those people made many dreams come true for my son,” says Marsach, whose son, Raphael Cordero, 40, died of AIDS last June after a two-year battle (View, July 5).

Marsach had left Dorado, Puerto Rico, for Burbank to care for her son, founder of the American Centenarian Committee that befriends 100-year-olds throughout Southern California. Cordero often played the piano for his friends and made their birthday wishes come true. After Cordero’s diagnosis, his old friends began to visit and pray for him.

“He received so much strength from his centenarians,” says Marsach, who returned to her hometown last September, three months after Cordero died.

Marsach, 62, returned with many memories, Cordero’s gray cat, Zane, and her son’s ashes contained in a box of camphor wood.

“Raffi’s ashes are on top of a shelf in the living room,” Marsach says. “When my family of friends from California come to visit me next year, we’ll bury my son.”

Marsach also is planning a trip here in May to attend the annual luncheon her son started as a tribute to centenarians.

“I feel so happy that my son’s work has continued on. He would be so happy to know that his centenarian friends will not be forgotten.”