I woke up – alone in bed, after a long night of talking with Carlos. I had some weird dreams of my uncle, Gabriel, during my restless sleep. How does it feel to be shot dead by the police? I guess no one can tell, shot by the police sure, but not shot dead.
"Buenos días Mi Alma" – Carlos entered the bedroom with one cup of coffee in each hand. He handed me one. "Are you up for today?" he asked gravely. I confirmed that I was.
Seeing my uncle's grave for the first time, the uncle I never knew and had heard very little about before yesterday. We drove in silence to the graveyard. Juan was already there when we arrived. He had a grim look on his face, and I could see he had been crying. He hugged me and took my hand, as Carlos took my other hand. Neither of them said a word.
"You know Alma, I loved that boy, he was my best friend," Juan said quietly. "We were both first-year students at the university here. We both joined the protest movement. The canteen discussions were intense; every day, students came in with big rolls of paper they would stick to the walls, containing demands for democracy and political change. The police would come in and tear these papers down. Sometimes it took minutes other times the papers would hang for hours. There were protests all over the country, writers, film directors, and actors came along and fronted the movement. One time the actors left the stage in the middle of a performance in Madrid, telling the audiences, they were on strike. The audience applauded. We had such big hopes that we could finally turn the regime around."
"Gabriel and I both joined a public student demonstration. The police came just 10 minutes in and started shooting at the protesters. Your uncle Gabriel was the only one who was shot dead, but there were several injuries. I got a bad beating by the police." Juan shakes his head. "You have to have lived it to truly understand it."
He handed me a small box – "I don't know if you want to keep it yourself or give it to Susannah, but this was his family ring. Your grandfather didn't want it, he thought he had failed in protecting his son, so he gave it to me," Juan said quietly.
I opened the small box and saw a ring similar to the one my grandfather had, with the same family shield. I pressed it to my heart and rushed into a bearhug with Juan.
We put down a stone on top of the gravestone, as the Jewish tradition is, and put roses there. We took some photos that I would send to mama. The gravestone said, Gabriel Garcia Bech. Born: August 16, 1955, dead June 24, 1973.
My uncle.
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My Soul - Mi Alma (Ongoing)
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