The
first time he dodged a bullet was before he was even born. Late in her
pregnancy, my mother became ill with hepatitis. The doctors told her and the
rest of the family, point-blank, that there was no chance of the baby’s living
and that her own chances of survival were about 50-50. She spent the last
months of her pregnancy in bed, staining the linens yellow with her sweat. In
spite of it all, the baby was born; jaundiced and with the umbilical cord
wrapped around his neck, but very much alive.
The second time was when he was still
a baby, not even a year old. In July of 1957 there was a terrible earthquake
that shook Mexico City. Te Angel which
crowned the Column of Independence toppled to the ground. It was also the first
big earthquake my mother experienced. According to her, the first thought that
crossed her mind as she was awakened at around 2:30 in the morning was that the
city was being bombed. Her second thought was, “The baby!”
 |
| Angel of Independence, 1957 |
Lalo
was in the next room, alone, and my mother could hear the blinds on the window
rattling. My father held on to her and didn’t let her leave. When the quake
finally abated and they rushed into his bedroom, the wall against which his
crib had been had fallen. And the crib? It had rolled out into the middle of
the room. The baby was fine.
Throughout
his childhood years, he dodged the bullets most of us manage to evade as well.
All the childhood diseases, accidents and dangers associated with growing up,
plus a few more emotional and physical blows dealt, unfortunately, by my father;
theirs was not an easy relationship. The violence was mostly psychological, it
seems, but violence there was. That is what probably led Lalo to start using
drugs. The rocky relationship with my father seemed to create an essential need
for approval, for fitting in and being “one of the guys”.
During
this time, Lalo evaded a few more threats, mostly to his well-being. In the
very difficult years that followed, many of his friends, as well as so many
others of his generation, became victims and either died or wound up “fried” as
a result of their drug use. Again, Lalo made it through; although it took years
and he was never really able to stop completely (he always openly admitted his
addiction to pot) he did quit using all of the other stuff and survived again.
The
last great, amazing survival “exploit” of his, was once when he was talking to
someone over the phone during a thunderstorm. There he was, happily chatting
away, when a bolt of lightning hit the phone-line, travelled through it and hit
Lalo. He said he felt someone had smashed a fist into his chin. He flew through
the air a few meters, landed on his back on the floor and felt a funny tingling
sensation throughout his body. Later, when he asked my mother if she thought
God was trying to send him a message, my mother promptly answered, “Yes! He’s
telling you not to talk on the phone during a storm!” The only aftereffect of
this adventure was a bruise at the exact center of his chin. It was there for
months.
So,
then, the question would have to be, why now? I wish I could tell you I’ve
figured that one out. That I’m sure there is a grand scheme, a plan which now
lies straight and clear before my eyes, but no such luck. I’ll never be able to
understand why after all those other times he survived, this was the one that got
him. And he almost cheated death again! For a while there, it seemed he had
beaten the cancer; even his doctors were amazed. But he did get a reprieve of
almost two whole years, when he should have died in three months.
It
could be, like I told my mother the other day, that God is shaking his head in
disappointment. “What more do you want? I left him with you for almost 55
years, when he wasn’t even supposed to be born!”
In
the end, maybe that’s the whole point. We all die. Nobody lives forever. And,
if we’re very, very lucky, we get to pass the time, dodging bullets, with
people we can love.
Susana Olivares Bari
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