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A Remembrance for the Murdered and for Days Past

Casa Anunciación — El Chuco, Texas, April 15-21, May 3, 2012

Lord Jesus, You who said that wherever two or more were gathered in Your name to pray or to ask of the Father who is

in heaven, You would be in their midst. Be it, then,Y our word that unites us in praying and asking for those who are no

longer here, for those whom You have gathered and we expect to be with You in Your kingdom, now and forever.

Breadth and space elude me.

All I know is what my eyes can see,

A time worn building lacking of symmetry,

But still. What welcome grace infused its bricks,

Defining its awkward stance here, on Sunday last

In this new season of spring, and again last night,

And so will continue to define its stance tonight, and on

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Until Friday evening that will witness the last prayer,

The last lamentation as they rise up to the heavens,

echoing —

Here is the lament of the twice dead, here the sighs

Of ten thousand left without face, without memory.

Two small trees in front of the building have metamorphosed into

Creatures of green leaves, light and names that mold the bricks

Into a living Tree of Life, ancient symbol beloved of the Mexican

Peasantry now become the common memory of so many dead.

These names, ten thousand fleeting lights of Casa Anunciación

that having briefly lived on brick and tree now must vanish,

Like the living who once bore them into the mists of time,

Of memory, melting into the unremitting depths of night.

Géminis Ochoa — ¡presente! I never met you, tocayo,

But I knew about you. There was no way that they could let

You live, tatuado mitotero de corazón forjado por tus ancestros

En Euskal Herria, fighting to obtain a small justice for the vendors

On the bridges, easy prey for the social cleansers who so hated you.

You honored your name, you won the prize. The paramilitary murdered you.

Governor Duarte, you mount a horse in splendid emulation

Of Francisco Villa; doubtless you can also waltz to La Valenciana,

And perhaps even lightly trip through a Chotisse from the old world.

Let no one say you care not for the dead: see how you shamelessly

Posture for the Army, the Federal Police, the local guardians of order

Blithely blinking reality, breathlessly touting a bright new day for Chihuahua state.

Josefina Reyes Salazar — ¡presente! Your family, faithful Stewards

Of the valley from Sierra Blanca to Juárez. You were marked, as were

All of yours, early on. Whiskey-fueled Calderón sent the Army to the

Juárez valley for the extermination to begin apace. Four army bullets

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To your head as you bought groceries in El Sauzal. México afortunado -

"Piensa, oh Patria querida que el cielo, ¡un soldado en cada hijo te dió!"

Municipal President Hector Murgía, graduate of the fabled Tec de Monterrey,

You rail and glower at the lucky ones with means to flee the city, calling them

"Traitors" and otherwise defaming them, all the while touting the merits that your

Toy, Lieutenant Colonel Julián Leyazola has brought to the Municipal Police.

Teaching them to live by killing, he has now restored "your" City's wounded pride.

And El Paso Chamber of Commerce types thrill to the arrival of displaced Juárez wealth.

So many names they blur one into one, among them the many not-named,

"Femenina - No Identificada", and her partners, "Masculino - No Identificado,"

"Restos Óseos - Sexo Masculino"

¡presente!

The assassins have not only taken your country, your life, they have without human mercy

Left you beyond recognition, faceless, without your name, without a body that someone

Somewhere would surely bother to claim and remember — how to dare, to begin to know

What to say to you? What brought you to the border, what meager provenance did you

Leave behind, what defiled Gossamer Informed your dreams? Who judged you to merit

This worst of all punishments, this worst of all possible fates, in solitude, so terribly, terribly

Far from those who knew and loved you, who even now lack certain knowledge of your death?

How to bring this man Calderón before the Bar of Justice?

We are become the horror. Your cry rises to pierce the heavens.

Faith and Hope tremble.

In the whirlwind.

They threaten to abandon us.

A desert.

Lord God in Heaven, look Thou to Thy children

Help save us from ourselves

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I stand on the sidewalk facing Casa Anunciación's

Southern elevation, somewhere between twenty and forty Yards across,

transfixed by three columns of light bearing names making their way up the

side of the building, Held close by the moment that makes time stand still.

Two small trees in front of the building have metamorphosed into

Creatures of green leaves, light and names that mold the bricks

Into a living Tree of Life, ancient symbol beloved of the Mexican Peasantry

now become the common memory of so many dead.

These names, ten thousand fleeting lights of Casa Anunciación

That having briefly lived on brick and tree and now must vanish

Like the living who once bore them, into the mists of time,

Of memory, melting into the unremitting depths of night.

Géminis Ochoa — ¡presente! I never met you, tocayo,

But I knew about you. There was no way that they could let

You live, tatuado mitotero de corazón forjado por tus ancestros En Euskal Herria,

fighting to obtain a small justice for the vendors

On the bridges, easy prey for the social cleansers who so hated you.

You honored your name, you won the prize. The paramilitary murdered you.

Josefina Reyes Salazar — ¡presente! Your family, faithful Stewards

Of the valley from Sierra Blanca to Juárez. You were marked, as were

All of yours, early on. Whisky-fueled Calderón sent the Army to the

Juárez valley for the extermination to begin apace. Four army bullets

To your head as you bought groceries in El Sauzal. México afortunado -

"Piensa, oh Patria querida que el cielo, ¡un soldado en cada hijo te dió!"

So many names they blur one into one, among them the many not-named,

"Femenina - No Identificada", and her partners, "Masculino - No Identificado,"

"Restos Óseos - Sexo Masculino"

¡Presente!

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The assassins have not only taken your country, your life, they have without human mercy, left you

beyond recognition, faceless, without your name, without a body that someone somewhere would surely

bother to claim and remember — how to dare, to begin to know What to say to you? What brought you

to the border, what meager provenance did you Leave behind, what defiled Gossamer informed your

dreams? Who judged you to merit This worst of all punishments, this worst of all possible fates, in

solitude, so terribly, terribly Far from those who knew and loved you, who even now lack certain

knowledge of your death?

And the living go on living.

César Horacio Duarte Jáquez - Governor of Chihuahua, unconditional

Admirer of Francisco Villa; doubtless you can also waltz to La Valenciana,

And perhaps even lightly trip through a Chotisse from the old world.

Let no one say you care not for the dead: see how you shamelessly

Posture for the Army, the Federal Police, the local guardians of order

Blithely blinking reality, breathlessly touting a bright new day for Chihuahua state.

Municipal President Hector Murgía, graduate of the fabled Tec de Monterrey,

You rail and glower at the lucky ones with means to flee the city, calling them

"Traitors" and otherwise defaming them, all the while touting the merits that your Toy,

Lieutenant Colonel Julián Leyazola has brought to the Municipal Police.

Teaching them to live by killing, he has now restored "your" City's wounded pride.

And El Paso Chamber of Commerce types thrill to the arrival of displaced Juárez wealth.

How to bring Mexican President Felipe Calderón before the Bar of Justice?

We are become the horror. Your cry rises to pierce the heavens.

Faith and Hope tremble.

In the whirlwind.

They threaten to abandon us.

A desert.

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Lord God in Heaven, look Thou to Thy children Help save us from

ourselves

Jesús B. Otxoa — for the dead, for the living who survive and mourn them, for those who came every evening to

pray and to bear witness, for those who could not attend but were there in spirit — in gratitude to Rubén Garcia of

Annunciation House, staff and volunteers, Grupo Nazaret, St. Pius X, the Matlachines de Nuestra Señora de

Guadalupe, nuns, priests and all who worked to make the events of the past week a felt reality on the border. Photo of

the names on Casa Anunciación by Katy, a volunteer from Connecticut at Casa Vides, all via Kat, a volunteer from

Kansas at Annunciation House.

These lights on Casa Anunciación have so impacted me, wondering whether Lupita had been asked for

any succor by the dying, and how I could have done so much more than the little I did as a trial lawyer: I

don't mean immigration law, which held little interest for me due to the limited court room lawyering it

afforded.

But the hate back then was nowhere as bad as it is today. I faced off with the Border Patrol a fair amount

of times, in and out of court, but it was different. Today there is a huge problem, as there was during the

Viet Nam years, with veterans who find work with ICE/Border Patrol. I am convinced that there are too

many vets with mental/emotional problems who have found work in those two agencies; the mob

mentality of Border Patrol agents in beatings and killings is also something relatively new, and

somehow these problems need to be addressed and solved.

When I was in Mexico City last to act as a juror in the International Tribunal of Conscience and had

made it to the Basílica, I swear I started walking backward on the moving walkway before a guard

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noticed and told me that I could go around again. I just couldn't take my eyes off her image on Juan

Diego’s tilma on the wall.

I had first posted the Lupita poems online about near a year ago, when an incident I had been told about

took me back to 1987, to a day of pounding late fall rain, when I was in San Cristobal de las Casas in

Chiapas. My wife and I had gone to the church to meet the Bishop, Don Samuel Ruiz. Unfortunately, he

had gone to an Indian village to attend to some emergency.

But we met a young priest, who a year or so later sent me an e-mail when I happened to sign the guest

book on the parish web page. We corresponded back and forth, and one day he sent me Bishop

Peñalosa's lovely poem to Lupita.

It moved me to attempt to translate it to English, and I have since shared both with many people. The

priest and I lost contact when Don Samuel resigned, and I have no idea where he may now be.

It all seems so long ago.

The rain, enjoying sitting next to a window on the second floor of a walk-up small eatery, savoring a

dish of? pasta! Glancing out to see a pair of cops hectoring a Tzotzil elder wearing the distinctive

ribboned hat — running down the stairs and taking on the cops, nearly getting arrested — what saved

me was my wife on the small terrace outside the window getting thoroughly soaked as she calmly used

the camcorder — the cops looking up, then hopping in their car and taking off — my getting chewed out

by the proprietor — the elder paying me a small reverence

— I hadn't thought about this in years.

Hope you enjoy the poem in Spanish as I have, with Juan Diego reciting, with eloquence, how he just

can't do what she wants in a totally believable version of this Mexica Saint setting out his perceived

unworthiness, so different a presentation than that of the stylized image adopted by the Vatican as the

official image of Saint Juan Diego, and the lovely reply by the Virgin with her wonderment at her lack

of letters of recommendation.

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I share the Lupita poems and what follows because, sitting in front of Annunciation House on the last

Friday evening of the vigil, I was thinking of so many things I could hardly sort out all that was going

through my mind. I have been here every night since Sunday, April 15, when the press conference set

the theme for the remembrances. So on this last night of the vigil because I am grateful that it is the last

night, so many names, so many deaths have been terribly difficult to grasp, I just try to sort out my

thoughts because I am with mine among the living.

First, of course, is my Micaela who will graduate from St. Joe's in Philly in a couple of weeks, then she'll

go off to Ecuador for a ten day immersion program working with the poor, then to El Paso for a couple

of months before she goes off probably to San Francisco for a year's service with the Jesuits to serve in a

program for the elderly. It was her mother who was taking a video while I was taking on the cops in San

Cristobal de las Casas, and it was our visit that ultimately led me to Bishop Peñalosa's poem.

Then my second daughter small Boo who just turned twenty-one and thinks she's already an old lady and

the fact that I keep telling Lupita that it's her I'm asking instead of her Kid to give Boo a hand in getting

her act together and I was thinking too how late in my life as the disease progresses apace how lucky

indeed I have been these past few years since the heart surgery having friends I can count on a given day

having met new nuns and priests who have gladdened my heart with their strong faith and sense of

purpose and have helped in strengthening mine thinking on how curious life can be now that my long

dead parents uncles and aunts begin to people my dreams along with my brother who drowned at the old

Donkey Peak* I was five and how long it took me to trust angels again and my beloved Alexandra too

who has these many years lived somewhere in a corner of my mind - my beautiful fiancée back when I

was in the Navy and she beginning her doctoral studies in Romance Languages at Chicago University all

of 22 years old who would correct my border Spanish and me a paltry 23 with but a bachelors Lord how

we shared a love of ancient Mozarabic Spanish poetry football smelt and beer and garlic bread round a

fire on Rainbow Beach off Lake Michigan and then my fair Alexandra left me one day just a few months

after having been diagnosed with lymphatic cancer and how my world crashed again r.i.p. Cristina and I

could barely hold up my corner end at the head of the casket with her da on the other corner and in

dreams she visits me now and again and talks to me and tells me that it's going to be all right that I'm on

the money in believing that all things happen for a reason and she reminds me of our devotion to Lupita

whom she also loved and sometimes I wake up and am instantly angry that it was a dream and my hand

feels warm where she was holding it and I can't find her in the moment because I'm sitting up in bed

feeling about me and I want my new nun friends and priests too to enjoy this lovely poem which

Alexandra would have loved because it says it all — ¿Quién le quita la idea de encontrar personal sin

cartas de recomendación? Yeah why would one need letters of recommendation when all you have to

do when and if you heed the call is to try to live by the two great commandments, practice the beatitudes

and you sure as there are

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flying monkeys don't need a degree in theology to do that which is what my priest and nun friends do

even though the Vatican can't understand the divine simplicity of the Church He founded before the

mens' (add an o and you have menso=dummy) only club got to messing with it much they can’t see the

forest for the trees and along these lines I am so moved by the young people I have met recently if only

briefly Stephanie who used to be at Annunciation House and Sacred Heart Church so proud of being a

Notre Dame grad is about to finish law school at Norteaster University and is already involved with the

National Lawyers Guild and Becca at Casa Vides and her lovely written reflections on her service a real

treasure for Creighton and lately Kat, Katy and Liz who sports a discrete tattoo at the base of her neck

who let the Administration at Notre Dame know that she was there and that they better listen and I think

of Géminis Ochoa and his tattoos who was murdered by right wing paramilitary thugs for speaking up

for the vendors on the bridges and other young people whose names I don't know who live in their youth

a life of service for a year or more and I get a sense that things are going to be better for they really but

really have to get better and I think I sense a small beginning of a turnaround in my Church and I am

beginning to get a sense that the Vatican may be backing itself slowly into a corner with the latest

foolish and out of time attack on the nuns and something will have to give and I don't think it going to be

the people of God who are beginning to stand up on their hind legs and that in my case maybe I've done

something right in exposing my girls early on to the work at Annunciation House and Casa Vides where

Micaela and Boo remember how one Ash Wednesday ashes from burnt models of casitas de carton**

were used and I thank Don Rubén for that for here's my dingbat about to go off for her year and it is

crystal clear that the work Don Rubén is doing has already borne fruit and not just the young but older

folk like Patricia Delgado and the impressive list of people who came together and put last week into

motion and Sweet Susan off in Fort Worth who comes to town now and again to help and others like

Laura Carlsen in Mexico City who graces us with her presence from time to time and surely with people

like these and more young UTEP grads like Christy Garcia over at Las Americas and her pal Ana

Morales both of whom organized that great gathering for peace over at Anapra New Mexico and Anapra

in Juárez separated by the fence with Border Patrol men glowering at the large gathering and people I

met in Mexico like Camilo, Dorinda, the lady who championed Cuba and counted Fidel among her

friends whose name I have shamefully forgotten (Berta?) and beautiful Adriana who has been to Tibet

who is interested in Buddhism and works with an ecumenical center in Mexico City things surely are

going to get better and Adriana walked up with me to the original Basílica playing an ancient Mexica

clay flute that has been in her family for generations as we made our way up the many steps and the

drum she had brought back from Tibet a small prayer drum with a handle and sprung drumsticks on

either side so when she rotated it as we walked up it went boom-BOOM but softly with the flute pitched

high and how we attracted a crowd including some nuns and when we stopped several times to rest my

knees and to say Ave Marías how more people latched on to us to when we got to the top there were a

gaggle of people with Adriana and me at the head with her holding on to my elbow and me with the

stick in the other hand like a marshal leading with the baton and I was blown away and when we went to

Mass at the new modern church and saw doddering old men wearing sashes acting as altar servers I was

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outraged for how much more appropriate would it have been for the servers to have been children boys

and girls as I remembered her words am I not here who am you mother and I think of the migrants and

their devotion to the dark Virgin either as Guadalupe or Tonantzin and some of the Original Peoples I

have met in the Sierra and in Central Mexico with a death grip on their faith and reliance on her and how

it must be when some of them are lost in the Arizona desert or going under for the last time in the Rio

Grande down river near the coast how they more likely than not they go to their deaths with a prayer to

her on their lips and surely they don't have the formal learning to understand that unbelief or to question

why am I dying here in this place at this time with years of life left to live when all I wanted was to help

me and mine to live a little better not knowing that a moment of questioning of unbelief can

paradoxically strengthen faith and that's its o.k. to say along with Matthew I think it was Lord I believe

help Thou my unbelief and maybe they're lucky they don't suffer their version of John of the Cross's

dark night of the soul and don't go beyond the ancient "séa por Dios" and I think of Boo and her dark

nights of the soul as she struggles with living her beliefs and then last Friday at the dinner how a nun

whose name I don't know noticed I was having a bit of trouble standing up for the various recognitions

because of my bad knees and had in fact teetered on one occasion and she moved from her table to sit

next to me and supported me on the back a couple of times as another nun behind her introduced herself

as Sr. Bea (I think) and they were Franciscans causing me to mention that my girls had gone to school at

Our Lady of the Valley where Sr. Caroline also a Franciscan nun was the principal and she broke the

news that Caroline had died also from cancer as had her sister Cecilia and that this had been only three

weeks ago and how ten priests had concelebrated the funeral Mass and I gave her my address so she

could send me some info regarding Sr. Caroline's death and Bea is also recently dead because a nun

friend wrote and asked me to remove Bea's name from my favorite peoples' list and the little

remembrance card for Caroline's death just came in the mail and I had told Bea about the time Caroline

had called me I think the girls were in the fourth and fifth grades she told me it was important and she

wanted to see me so I showed up the next day and she wanted the complete lyrics I had taught my girls

about what she called the "chicken song" and I told her I didn't know what she was talking about so she

said something about the chicks saying "pio pio" and I got red in the face and said that one? and she said

the complete lyrics and I told her that I didn't think that there were that many and that I only knew of one

version, so I wrote it down for her, "los pollitos cantan pío pío pío cuando tienen hambre cuando tienen

frío - la gallina dice cállense cabrónes bola de guevones" “sing the little chicks “pio pio pio, when they

are hungry when they are cold - the chicken answers shut up, you #x&$ lazy bunch of layabouts” and I

told Bea how Caroline had nearly fallen off the chair laughing and had then told me to stop teaching the

girls stuff like that, she had heard other kids singing it, and my girls had been fingered and Sr. Caroline

told me she could get in trouble with Fr. Rini, except I didn't remember Fr. Rini's name on Friday night

but I told Sr. Bea how he finally gave in after about three years of trying to let us have a Mass on

December 12 for Lupita and at the time there was a Mexican priest who was at Our Lady of the Valley

so he could learn English and whose name I have forgotten and shouldn't have because he was the priest

who blessed the almost life size fibre glass statue of Lupita that I had bought at the old Cuauhtémoc

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market in Juárez for $25 and who had been scanned at the bridge three times before the border thugs

were satisfied that the girls and I weren't smuggling drugs and the priest had to lean in through the

window so he could sprinkle her with holy water because she was in the passenger seat of the old pick-

up after our first Lupita Mass at 5 a.m. and to Fr. Rini's surprise because with only word of mouth

publicity since he wouldn't announce the upcoming Lupita Mass from the pulpit the place was packed at

five in the morning and a teacher had brought a beautifully hand embroidered Standard of Guadalupe

with gold fringe all around and tassels at the bottom made by her sister who was a nun in Puebla and we

stood it to the side of the altar and how just as Mass began Fr. Rini walked in with a large painting of the

Immaculate Conception which he stood on a chair in front of the Guadalupe Standard and I walked up

from my pew and moved the chair over to the side of the Standard so we had an undeclared war between

the two Virgins and I wouldn't budge and so we had a Mexican standoff and later Caroline and I had a

good laugh over the incident and I don't recall if I told Bea that at about that time Caroline showed me

her scrap book filled with historical memorabilia including news clippings about how Our Lady of the

Valley was founded having formerly been the Ysleta Country Club which had moved off to grander

quarters and some of the super rich farming families down river convinced Bishop Metzger to purchase

the property and it became an all white parish for the rich farmers except that in a few years there were

increasingly more Mexicans than gueros until when Fr. Rini the new pastor from Chicago arrived and it

was almost totally Mexican he was not pleased and shortly after our Mass with only the congregation

singing the Mañanitas off key he wouldn't allow Mariachis and we settled for that because he adamantly

refused to let a large and accomplished group of Matlachines from the Cathedral in Juárez dance outside

the church because they were "pagan" refusing to understand that in our culture to dance is to pray and

shortly after that he retired to Minneapolis and I said good riddance to him and Sr. Bea opined that he

should never have been sent to El Paso and I told her how she had hit that one on the head and how there

came a day when I told Caroline that I would have to pull the kids out of school as I had hit a hard

financial spot and she wouldn't hear of it and she somehow got the girls a scholarship from somewhere

in St. Louis I believe through her order and later when I tried to pay she wouldn't take the money and the

thought crossed my mind that too many of my friends and my compadre Joe Chacón Fr. Luis

Verplanken S.J. the founder of Clínica Santa Teresita for Rarámuri kids in the Serra Madre of

Chihuahua where Micaela was born and Boo couldn’t wait and she was born as I was making a left turn

in the Dodge pickup in El Paso on the way to the hospital so I caught her with one hand while turning

the wheel with the other and George McAlmon Justo Sierra Ramón González Sr. Caroline Fr. Anthony

Concha S.J and people who have impacted my life are dying and here I sit waiting reading one more

time Patrick Dunne's wonderful “Letter to a Dying Friend”*** and dealing with my greatest fear which

is to have a semi-active mind in a body that clearly is rather rapidly shutting down all while

understanding that it ain't my call so I am posting these poems and thoughts because sitting in front of

Annunciation House on that last Friday as if I were smack in the middle of a virtual cemetery overcome

with the smell and trappings of death hearing the soul piercing cries of those many thousands murdered

so many young people the screams of terror of young women being killed that I just had to be there

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every night trying to pray and think for a while what maybe we could do and when the load got a bit

heavy chatting with people because I could not stay til midnight and it was a blessing that the last bus

was at 10:15 and but a ten minutes walk away and then at the dinner last Friday at Santa Lucia hall

remembering how way back in the day when we lived near Carolina Drive we used to go to Sunday

Mass at Santa Lucia on Gallagher Street given that the nice Spanish priests over at San Antonio which

was nearer were also terribly right wing and one of the glories of the Santa Lucia parish was its vibrant

EPISO chapter until something happened and all of a sudden a relationship between the Diocese of El

Paso and the Diocese of Atlanta Georgia evolved and "Legionaires of Christ" priests were assigned to

Santa Lucia apparently so they could learn Spanish in our border setting so there went EPISO and after a

couple of radical right wing sermons we stopped going to church there and I hadn't been to Santa Lucia

until this “Voice of the Voiceless awards” dinner and given the size and appearance of the hall along

with the hosting of this signature event the parish surely has rebounded with the Legionnaires long gone

and I was there because my pal Sonya had invited me to attend the Awards Dinner which was just a bit

out of my financial reach and then unfortunately she was unable to attend and I had missed the

Immigration Forum earlier in the day as I was fighting vertigo and went to the dinner toting my pills so I

gave the extra ticket to Pat Delgado who managed to put it to good use and walking the walkway into

the hall had been an uplifting experience as bordering the walkway on each side were several beautiful

thematic altars staffed by the people who had designed and put them up and I was particularly taken by

the Indigenous Altar dedicated to my cousins the Rarámuris of the Sierra Madre of Chihuahua and

sponsored by St. Mark's Parish but my short term memory fools me and I don't remember if the Nuestra

Señora de Guadalupe Matlachines (Pagans!!!) danced their way through the hall making an obeisance at

the main altar and then dancing out a side door after three women bearing copaleras with smoking sweet

copal incense had smudged the dais or the St. Pius X singers came first but in any event and with a

mixture of liturgy and camptown character of the meeting — featuring the familiar "el pueblo unido

jamás será vencido" “the people united will never be defeated” and which initially made me grumble

inwardly, having felt the need for a new chant after fifty some odd years of chanting this one) — seemed

set but Grupo Nazaret the youth group from St. Pius X sang a rousing song built around the slogan that

had the hall rocking and clearly united in enthusiasm so with that the program was underway with

dramatic readings by Fr. Bill Morton and Kathy Revtyak a young woman whom I do not know with

both superbly filling their roles as masters of ceremony and I was especially moved by Ms. Revtyak's

ability to connect with the audience - one expects this ability from a priest like Padre Arturo a nun or a

person like Rubén García as people who speak from a moral point of view which lends gravitas to a

given presentation but a lay person generally operates at a lower level of connectivity and Ms. Revtyak

is hardly a lay person being a licensed clinical social worker but based on long experience in cross-

examining social workers licensed and psychologists and psychiatrists when the late District Judge

Enrique Peña used to appoint me with rather distressing regularity attorney ad litem for kids caught in

the system which usually meant Child Protective Services and I had found that most social workers

rarely transcended their role as police agents for the state as opposed to really speaking for the children

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who were not at their best during cross-examination and since I don't take Ms. Ravtyak to be one of

these and I was lucky and am grateful for having had the opportunity to hear her speak and then Dr.

Zulma Méndez a faculty member at UTEP was eloquent in accepting the "Witness on the Border" award

for Sra. Luz María Dávila of Juárez who gained international notice when she famously told President

Calderón that 1) the kids murdered at the Villas de Salvacar massacre were not gang members as he had

asserted, and 2) that he was not welcomed to grandstand in Juárez and because she was not able to get a

pernit to cross to El Paso and was unable to honor us with her presence to attend once again made me

wonder at the stupidity of the law and the border guardians who close the door to people even for a brief

visit for surely they're worse than even the angel of the Lord sent to guard the gates of Eden after the

expulsion and young Juan Manuel Escobedo the brother of his murdered sister Rubí Marisol Escobedo

and son of murdered Marisela Escobedo Ortiz accepted his award as a “Witness on the Border” and he

did so on the behalf of his late mother and sister whom he designated as the real persons who merited

the award and setting the stage for Javier Sicilia the night's honoree as the recipient of the 2012 "Voice

of the Voiceless" Award and the Mexican poet spoke eloquently on the role of the poet in society also

stating that the real recipients of the award were the voiceless themselves, those who had been murdered

and judging from the consensus of the several people I spoke with at the close of the dinner it was Don

Rubén who made the most memorable speech of the night being interrupted several times with

prolonged clapping and the high point of his talk his depiction of how we all begin life thinking that we

own our history and that life exists for us and only as I understood it when an Epiphany or event of epic

proportions happens to occur is it that our lives are turned around by our response to the event and that it

is at precisely that moment that we realize that we in effect owe something to life and how our history

will be the record of how we live our life as in living it fully with direction or what we will do with it

and I thought of John F. Kennedy's remark "ask not what your country can do for you ask what you can

do for your country” just substitute "life" for country and twist it a bit to say ask what you can make of

your life and that about sums it up for it is a serious challenge that Don Rubén offered to the attendees

and it was right on target surely the killings unleashed by a man poorly prepared to understand what he

has done as Calderón more and more proves to be and to do should motivate us to be more than

proactive in our defense of the voiceless and I would add in our efforts to redirect out foreign policies

and to reestablish our Constitutional guarantees that President Obama has so readily thrown overboard

as a Chief Executive who wins a Nobel Peace prize for engaging in seemingly endless war and who

then proclaims his right to assassinate American citizens he and he alone deems to have aided albeit

indirectly terrorist organizations without charges brought and without trial and I remembered John le

Carré’s novel “A Most Wanted Man” that closes with an ugly rendition by the CIA woman agent and

how the real terror is the wave of criminality that our foreign policy has enabled in Mexico through the

Mérida Initiative and the slow degeneration of the country into a police state for surely as we have a

moral obligation to take a hard and realistic look at our use at our usage of drugs and the legalization of

most drugs with the exception of the deadly hard drug meth just as surely do we have I believe a moral

obligation to work to reform the political structure of this country which has now degenerated into two

16

political parties so out of touch with reality that the Supreme Court's decision making corporations the

equal of natural persons has not particularly moved our elected officials to seek to right this wrong and

quickly and the closing ritual was as impressive as the opening for first one woman and then others who

first read testimonies circled the hall in measured steps with copaleras burning the sacred copal incense

of the ancient gods and then stood in front of the main altar to perform a close replica of Native Peoples'

smudging ceremonies which are a cleansing ritual and after more testimonies and closing statements

prayer and songs the people were invited to light a large candle which was present on all the tables and

then to light from that candle an individual votive candle with a ribbon on which was the name of a dead

person and to take that candle home as a remembrance there were eight people to a table and the lit

votive candles were impressive and leaving I was glad to see people I had not seen for some time

including my pal Gustavo de la Rosa Hickerson the raporteur for civil rights for Chihuahua state and

Willivaldo Delgadillo who gave me an unexpected bear hug and Christy García who was kind enough to

give me a ride home and I thought that I really need to cheat one day and enjoy one more time a couple

of really really cold Bombay gin martinis so dry the vermouth bottle has just lightly been passed over

the glass with a small sweet cocktail onion and then a rare New York strip or maybe a rare prime rib

with a glass of good red wine maybe I'll really do this late this month when the social security hits the

credit union and meantime I'll listen one or more times to the great Mercedes Sosa and Joan Baez

singing Chilena Violeta Parra's lovely hymn to life****and I need to remember once again that there are

so many things left to be done and that one needs to get cracking.

Fragment

In a season of winter dare I bring a blood red rose?

Viewed through a shard of glass, Life reflects the improbable,

the lost, the yearned for that remains not found, the heart that

fled reality, the moss hung ancient tree leaning slow to pause

and then to fall all silently with no one by to hear

the harsh cry of the soul.

Jesús B. Otxoa, © 2013 el chuco, texas

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* Notes From the Diary of Urbici Soler

For my little friends Richard and Eduardo.

The 22 nd day of August of 1939.

It is five o'clock in the afternoon and the wind begins to refresh today's somewhat stuffy atmosphere,

and we climbed the mountain of Cristo Rey, Pedro with the water bags and some of the appliances for

work, and I, with our supper and clothes to defend ourselves from the cold.

At seven o'clock some huge thunderclouds approached in a violent fashion from the north, coming down

across the river valley, and joining with others peeking out from the opposite side of the Franklin

Mountains; together they attacked our position on the mountain peak with a torrential rain of diluvial

proportions. We managed to safeguard, so far as we were able to so do, the electric plant, tools, and

other implements needed for our work.

The lightning rod atop the cross hummed constantly as electric sparks arced out into space at brief

intervals, the sparks emitting a crackling whine from the apex, as heard from the base of our shelter.

Going around the base of the cross in an effort to find protection from the unerring torrents of water

which drenched our bodies, we finally curled up and covered ourselves with empty cement sacks, only

to emerge thoroughly soaked at the end of the storm. It must have been about eight when we were able

to see, from the platform that surrounds the cross of Cristo Rey, how the collector dike at the foot of the

mountain was filling with foaming water, which, in its swift, roaring race down the dry, rocky side of

the mountain, was coming to rest in a backwater, with the foam perhaps signifying a sense of fatigue

after the whirlpool had been abruptly stilled by the dike.

With the fall of night, when work-induced tiredness led us to abandon the peak, we descended the

mountain and finally reached the bank of the lagoon which had been so quickly formed. We were

surprised by the random, out-of-tempo croaking of an infinity of toads holding forth on its banks, and we

were gladdened that the sonorous noise of those little animals had given another aspect to the rugged

mountain quite apart from its austerity, and I thought that tomorrow, my little friends Richard and

Eduardo will frolic all day long in the water, as they had done with the waters of the week just past.

The 23 rd day of August of 1939.

My friend Richard was a blond, blue eyed american, who would be eleven years old today. He always

greeted me warmly, and in our conversations he was open to the point of being childishly tender. He had

mentioned with deep feeling that his brother had drowned in the Rio Grande some years back.

His companion in their mountain adventures was a dark skinned mexican, my other little friend,

Eduardo, no less compassionate than Richard, although more reserved. Both care for each other, they

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care because of the innate condition of being children, they care because they go to school, because they

fight, and because both are brave. I saw them last week from the apex of the mountain, how they swam

in that small ocean that the rain had unexpectedly given to them, incessantly and all day long, with that

juvenile, without-a-care, pleasure.

Today, the two friends saddled two donkeys and went off to ride about the mountain. Richard was

celebrating his eleventh birthday, and his friend Eduardo was accompanying him in his happiness.

About an hour after they had left, the two donkeys returned alone to the stable, still saddled as when they

had parted, but without their riders. Then Don Ismael, Eduardo's grandfather, supposing that something

was amiss, climbed up to the height of the dike to check up on the two boys, and he, the zealous

watchman over Mount Cristo Rey and my respected friend, Don Ismael, then was presented, before his

very eyes, with the most frightful spectacle of his life; the bodies of the two young friends, partying

without life, floating in the tranquil waters of the dike, lifeless, and he ran, and ran, desperately in search

of help

Richard's father was the first to run to the site of the tragedy and he pulled the two bodies from the

water, laying them by the side thereof, to try to revive them.

It was fruitless. The poor man could not give vent to his grief other than to caress the boys with

trembling hand, asking an infinity of questions, as, "tell me, Dick, it's your father - why do you go so

soon, leaving your parents and brothers so disconsolate?"

They did not drown simultaneously but rather one was drowning and his friend threw himself into the

water to rescue him.

The 24th day of August of 1939.

In the afternoon, Flores, the mechanic, Pedro, my assistant, and I started to climb Mount Cristo Rey. My

companions went on ahead to repair the electric plant and the compressor, two machines so worn that

they need constant attention in order to work. They went on ahead at my request because I wanted to go

by the small lagoon, yesterday's tomb of my two little friends, Richard and Eduardo, and I wanted to

salve, in my solitude, the depth of the emotions which that tragedy had left imprinted on my spirit.

A gentle breeze was blowing down through the canyon of the mountain, and when it hit the mirrored

water, it raised a ripple which in turn raised other ripples and then more, all of which raced toward the

banks upon which they died in the form of wavelets. Surrounding the lagoon, rocks there fallen through

immemorial epochs, worn smooth across the ancient ages by small waves which had failed to dislodge

them, were mute witnesses to the sweet act which Richard and Eduardo had there celebrated, an act

which elevated a monument to friendship as an attempt to rescue the life of a companion, drowning,

from the clutches of death with both dying in the attempt to save oneself and the other also.

19

We do not know, nor will it ever be known with certitude, which of the two was the one destined to

rescue the one who was drowning. Nor does it pique our curiosity to investigate the matter, as we know

that both were capable of making the sublime sacrifice, which is not written law, but which young souls

know how to honor in its most original form.

I climbed the mountain to meet with my companions, and from the peak saw the dark stain of the water

accented by the setting of the sun, and we entered into nightfall thinking of the tragic end of our

innocent young friends while we began, armed with chisels, the task of uncovering the image of Our

Lord which for thousands of years had lain within the Texas stone and which tranquilly awaited a

superior summons to emerge into the light.

We abandoned our labor at midnight, descending from the mount which is forming itself, passing, for

the last time on that day, by the lagoon which so filled out spirit with such towering sorrow.

The mountain stood, with maximum formal eloquence, and, at its summit, the redemptive cross rose

up with the visage of Our Lord at its front, being freed, as it were, from the stone which imprisoned it,

and silently, within our deepest self, we heard the distant echo of the divine words - "suffer the little

children to come unto me." Personal history:

I have translated the above from the Spanish, from typewritten, carbon copies of pages from his diary

given to my parents by the sculptor which I have recently found among some old papers. My brother,

Eduardo, was one month older than his friend, Richard Keating, when both drowned. The sculptor is in

error when he writes that Richard was celebrating his eleventh birthday. It was in fact his thirteenth. My

father's birthday was on August 26, three days after his son drowned.

I have been told that there was no celebration.

My uncle and my mother's brother, the late Cleofas Calleros, enjoyed a close friendship with the late

Msgr. Lourdes F. Costa, pastor of San Jose del Rio church in Smeltertown. Both were interested in

placing a permanent monument atop what was then called "la sierra del burro" - loosely translated as

"donkey peak" - to replace a 12 foot wooden cross that was placed on the peak in February, 1934, by

parishioners. The bulk of the parish men worked at the smelter, and one month later, on March 24, the

wooden cross was replaced by an iron cross crafted by smelter employees.

At the time of my brother's death, my father operated a small print shop. He was a master printer, and he

had recently started printing a weekly tabloid newspaper of limited circulation, styled the "El Paso

Social Justice

I have to hand the lead slugs, set by my father on his linotype machine, which were used to print the

death notices sent to relatives and friends. Translated from the Spanish, they read:

20

Yesterday, at 3:30 in the afternoon, wrapped in the bosom of the Holy,

Roman, Catholic and Apostolic Church,

EDUARDO RUBEN OCHOA

died, at the age of thirteen years and one month.

His parents, brother and other relatives, communicating the above to you

with profound sorrow, ask you to elevate to the Supreme Being such

prayers

as you may deem proper for the eternal rest of the deceased.

Rosary today at 8:00 p.m., Kaster & Maxon Mortuary Home.

Mass with the body present at 8:00 a.m., Friday, Saint Ignatius Church.

Burial at Evergreen Cemetery.

El Paso, Texas, August 24, 1939.

The September l, 1939 issue of the El Paso Social Justice led with the following headline, set in 84 point

type:

NAZIS INVADE; BLOCK POLAND The sub-heads read: German Militarists

Start Push to East Polish Capital and Part of Gydria Bombed by Fuehrers Planes;

NonCombatants Killed

In the center of the page was a picture of Eduardo, and his father's eulogy, part of which reads:

Last Friday El Paso Social Justice failed to roll off the press.

The American Printing Co., which publishes it was closed and silent. There was no rattling of

linotypes, no drumming of presses . . . But later that evening . . . (T)he mortuary chapel echoed

softly with the rosary service being offered for the soul of a brave little boy . . .

Last Wednesday Eduardo went to attend the birthday party of his friend, Richard Keating.

Richard was 13 that day; Eduardo was a month older. Richard's father is signal maintainer for the

Southern Pacific railroad and lives just west of the tunnel near the Rio Grande.

They were great friends, Rich and Eduardo. That afternoon they went to visit Eduardo's

grandfather who is a watchman at the Mt. Cristo Rey statue project. They then set forth to

explore the mountain, as they had often done before.

By mid-afternoon when the youngsters failed to return, the grandfather was frantic. After

searching frenziedly he discovered the drowned bodies of Richard and Eduardo in a reservoir

which held water for use on the project. Richard's body was clad in his undergarments. Eduardo's

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body was partially clothed. A New Mexico coroner's jury held at the spot of the tragedy gave the

verdict of "death by accidental drowning." It also added, due to the fact that Eduardo was partly

clothed, he had probably died in attempting to save Richard from drowning.

My grandfather did not go to the funeral mass nor to the burial. He stayed home to take care of

me. He told me that the angels had taken my brother up to heaven.

For a long time, I hated angels.

September 21, 1939, marked my fifth birthday. I remember asking why I did not have a party. **

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd_AVfaOPYc

*** http://magazine.nd.edu/news/18882-into-the-deep/

**** https://youtu.be/rMuTXcf3-6A