While driving home for lunch on the Pan-American Highway, cutting through the desert south of the city with the roaring Pacific Ocean on his right and sandy Andean foothills on his left, something went terribly wrong. My father was driving at an average speed when two cars intercepted him, one from the front and one from behind. Before he even heard the sound of two shots fired in his direction, my father had already quickly slid onto the lane to his right. He stepped down on the gas pedal deeper than he had ever done before, and he drove for hours. He drove until night fall, believing that only then it would be safe to travel home. Late that night, after an agonizing hour-long wait, the phone rang at home. It was my father. He asked my mother to go pick him up from where he was, and to come alone.
Twenty-five years ago this month, this harrowing event revolutionized and forever changed the life of my family. On April 12th, 1991, after years of threats and intimidation, a terrorist organization attempted to give my father a mortal blow, but fortunately he survived. My parents decided to abandon Peru so that my father could live. Though they made this choice freely a few days after the incident, I believe the decision was made for them that afternoon of April 12th. I made my First Communion the following week with my classmates, and on April 26th we boarded an American Airlines plane bound for Miami after packing just one bag each. I still remember that Home Alone was the feature on-flight film. We arrived to Augusta, Georgia the following morning without having exactly processed the magnitude of what had happened, nor fully aware of its implications.
We had been uprooted from all that was familiar and comfortable to a foreign country where our roots had to be replanted or else die. Little did I know at that time, that the roots would firmly take hold on the new soil and that Georgia would become my home.
I have learned that it is necessary to mourn those things that never came to fruition in our lives, just as we mourn the loss of those people or things that were once part of our lives. Sometimes we have reasonable expectations of the future that simply do not come about, and we have to mourn these anticipated future moments which never became memories. They remain dreams and desires that never materialized due to elements beyond our control.
This is mourning over and bringing closure to the inevitable “what ifs” of life. We must trust as Saint Paul instructs us in his letter to the Romans, “know that all things work for good for those who love God.” Life unfolds before us with unexpected twists and turns, and through them all the one thing that remains constant is God’s presence. God is the only constant to which we can hold on to, and know that if we hold on to his love, all things will work for good.
All pictures are mine, all rights reserved. Pictures of Lima, Peru, 2015.
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