Coldplay, Fix You

When is it that you realize someone is lost? Whether a cause or a person, either as an idea or a materiality, loss is part of our everyday lives. Loosing a phone call, a train, someone in your memory, it seems like a situation once present, stands backstage patiently, looking at the new events that unfold in your present life.

One of my best friend's dad got lost. I received a call at 4am telling me: I'm in Vienna, I need you to help my family find him. I started to connect with some family members, texting possibilities, jumping to my next day's chores. The idea of finding someone in Mexico City really seemed so daunting. 

Rufino is around 80, he's diabetic and has advanced pancreatic cancer. He was last seen at the front of his house on his car. Family thought he was going to park the car or make small chores but after 20 or 30 minutes, they all started wondering about him. Rufino is not acquainted with technology, therefore a cell phone is not an object of daily use.

The usual steps after someone is missing were taken. Rufino has a large family and all the sisters and brothers were doing something to try to figure things out. I arrived to their house around 1pm to try to make myself useful in some way.

Looking at these situations with a certain emotional distance is a challenge. I can say I have known these people all my life. It is part of an extended family I have acquired for the mere act of existing and remaining friends since elementary school. I don't think I was exactly welcomed because in these situations, you just need your family around. Somehow, I knew my friend needed me there and I guess broke some conventionalities that, if things changed, I would then respect otherwise.

My task was clear, informing things to my friend trying to come back from the trip and being useful. Immediately I jumped to Rufino's wife, making sure her medication or whatever she needed was something I could aid her with. Then, listening to the facts: Some toll payments the alleged Rufino made with his debit and credit cards at points in time since his disappearance. I took the computer out. Unconsciously I tried to make sense of it. If these ambiguous facts had a line, where does anyone begin to trace them?

I looked for the payments and tried to check if these coincided with specific routes leading to specific places out of Mexico City. Found some of these did and started calling an SOS number to try to see if we could contact the toll booths to alert and check if the alleged Rufino was on his own or was being held by other people in what's been called a Highjack Express.

I was prompted to eat by some neighbour that was feeding the family. I must do a small side note. Rufino's family is from Chiapas. This vast and rich landscape has given them amazing food and an advanced sense of celebrating life through it. I wasn't hungry but to be honest, everything looked delicious. I was happy everyone was eating, for a minute there we all (kind of) forgot the reason we were there and to my complete respect for my mother's friend, she was making jokes and remaining optimistic around a situation that got worse by the minute that went by. 

After two of the family members went to the police, a commander knocked on the door. She presented herself as a member of CAPEA and the leader of the investigation. I sat there taking calls while they declared the events of that day. At that point, Rufino had been missing for 16 hours. Watching a family dynamic is really interesting. Watching a family dynamic within an investigation report is a peek into a universe which will never be complete but seen through that telescope, that instant will be enough to imagine it's whole constellation.

I saw the commander tip toe around certain issues that had to be covered: "Did anyone know anything (and she was careful to underline the "anything" word) that could be useful for the case? Did he have a prior or a family on the side anyone knew of but that the mother, there present didn't? Everyone nodded, Rufino's wife smiled and said: "My husband has never been unfaithful if that's what you're asking". 

It's incredible to think that any of our daily events can be interpreted so differently by another set of eyes. While the commander was asking pertinent questions, it was as if she shed some light unto the deep caverns of a family's possible inner struggles. Did he take anything as he was leaving? How had he been behaving lately? Did you make any bank payments lately? Did he use to fight with other people while he was driving? Then Rufino became all these and none of the possibilities she expressed, that is, he had a family no one knew of and he just left. Or maybe he had a fight with another driver and was maybe hit on the face and left somewhere unconscious? Or just maybe, they had been followed all day after they finished some payments at the bank and taken hostage while he was driving by himself? Did they ask the policeman that guarded the gates of the complex they live in?

police booth

trying to download recorded content from cameras

She left with certain chores the family members had to do. I was texting my friend while answering the phone, munching on some some m+m's someone left open at the table. These people come from Chiapas alright but from the affection displayed, it seemed they were from all over Mexico. Compadres from Veracruz in a stern voice offered everything they had in their power to aid the situation, aunts, nieces, brothers of brothers, friends of the family in Yucatán offering prayers and crying on the phone, everyone just sending light for a quick retrieval of Rufino.

While I was taking notes, members of the family came by and hugged me or just smiled. I felt the warmth of people who are able to see other people in their despaired situation. Human resourcefulness amazes me. Being civil in the worst of conditions is something I will always appreciate and respect. 

On the table, there was a big invitation card that said: Pineda's Candle. Rufino's family has a yearly tradition, sometimes held in Mexico City or in Chiapas, Oaxaca, Yucatán or Veracruz. They gather and dress up in traditional indigenous fashion and celebrate their family. After receiving so many calls from these members it was so pertinent I think, to consider that I had wrongly assumed Mexico was so immense and Rufino so small. They all seem connected and he had ears and eyes everywhere, people on Facebook, announced on TV and radio, people kept calling them to provide everything a human being might need in these situations. Rufino had a candle, a lighthouse that was shining bright and all that he needed was to look in the right direction if he was able, if his will hadn't been compromised.

I left at 12 pm that night. Immersed in these thoughts. On the way out their house I saw they had a milliton tree. I told my friend's mother, this is amazing, living in a city, it's hard to find these trees unless you plant and care for them in your garden or patio. "Yes, my husband tends the trees and plants out here, he loves them. Take as many as you like." Puck! I took it off the tree and left with my tasty souvenir.

At 4 am I got another message: "They found my dad! He's home now! Thank you so, so, so much! Hugs!" Rufino's chemo makes things hazy, he drove non-stop for 40 hours trying to get back to a home that seemed to be moving in his judgement. The payments retrieved from his pockets show an incessant trail of gas stations and toll booth payments that take him out of the state and back again, then out again, then back again. Without his diabetes medication, things were looking pretty gloom but in deed, Pineda's candles, prayers, wishes and lights guided him home.