Death of a Son

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Trinidad tells how she was informed of son’s death in the guerrilla, and she describes a back injury that she suffered due to a mortar explosion.

Interviewee:

Transcription

When all the troops gathered together for the last mission, they came here to Arcatao. They lined up by the kiosk. My son was the commander of the platoon, and I was taking classes from Father Nicolás. I told him: “the guerrilla is coming, I’m going to go see because my son must be there.” Since I didn’t see him, I told the father, “I don’t know why he’s not there, but I’m going to wait for this whole parade to end and then I’ll ask.” Then, when I asked them, “well, my son was the commander of the platoon, why isn’t he here with you?” One of them said, “calm her down and then we’ll tell her.” I could already tell it wasn’t something good. However, they didn’t have the courage to tell me themselves, but instead they told me to call my son Gerardo. I told him, “Fernando says you should go see him this afternoon because he’s going to tell you something. I asked them about Paco and they said they didn’t know.” And sure enough, they told my son that he’d died in El Poy. That was four days after a back surgery I had, because I broke my back during the Guinda de Mayo.

[And how did that happen?]
Well, since we walked so, so much, and they threw so many bombs and mortars, a mortar fell really close to me and threw me on the ground. Who knows how I landed because I ended up fainting. But the good thing was the same comrades helped me and took me to a small field hospital, but my legs were numb. I could barely walk and I felt I didn’t have any more blood. I felt like the blood was leaving my body and I had to sit up quickly, otherwise I would fall. But when the time came, they operated on me. They gave life back to my legs, and I wasn’t crippled anymore. I would tell myself, “I’m going to be crippled!” But instead of that, I got stronger. I’m not going to tell you I don’t get any pain, but now it’s more calm, I can endure it. I just lay down to rest on the weekend and that’s it. But I don’t get the pains so often, and up to this day I am still under treatment. They still give me medicine.