Jungle Treks and Faith

Pasto, Colombia

April 15th, 1998

My love,

Last week, I could finally see your face. I knew you were alive; I could feel it. I could feel you. I went to the military base with your mother and the families of the other soldiers, where they showed us the video.

I was relieved for a moment when I saw it, but now I’m frightened. I saw your eyes full of fear. I heard your voice trembling while you were saying you were okay. I can’t stop thinking about the blanket they put behind you while filming to prevent us from seeing where they took you. It was blue with a print of dalmata puppies. It seems it belonged to some kid, which made everything even more cruel, if that’s possible. I see the video inside my eyelids every time I close my eyes, and I wish I could touch you, hold you, and tell you that you are going to be alright. Because you will be, you will be back soon. You have to.

Our baby was born on February 2nd. It’s a boy. He came one month early, but he is healthy. He is strong, like his father. I named him Daniel like you wanted. We have been staying with your mom since his birth because I can’t imagine being alone now. I can’t go to my parents’ house either. It’s too far from here, and I won’t leave you.

The three of us go to the radio station every week; they open a space to send messages to the hostages. I hope they let you listen. If you have, you must know we won’t lose faith. Don’t lose it either, my love. God is looking out for you, for us. He gives us strength to resist; He will soften these men’s hearts and bring you back to me.

I am sending you a picture of Daniel and the last one we took together. It was on Lina’s 20th birthday; remember that day? I can’t attempt to describe Lina’s despair. Carlos was not in the video, but he wasn’t among the fallen men during the attack on the military patrol either. We know nothing about him. Mr. Galvez sometimes leaves his crops and looks for his son in the wilderness, following any footsteps he sees on the ground. Some people who don’t understand think he is crazy, but I know I would do the same thing if I were in his shoes.

I don’t know if this letter will get to you. I begged a nurse from the Red Cross to take it, just in case they see you. He said he couldn’t promise me anything but took it anyway. God bless him. A policeman who was freed recently said on TV that sometimes the Red Cross can get into the FARC camps. I hope it’s true. The fact that man is free gives me hope.

I love you, I’m waiting for you, and I think of you every day. Don’t ever forget that.

Be strong, my love. We will be together soon.

November 28th, 2007

My Morenita,

I hope you are alright and have found some peace despite everything. I am okay, as good as it’s possible out here. We have walked so many hundreds of miles that I am further away from you than ever. I know it because our radio is getting different stations, with other music and accents. We use it only a few hours a day to save the battery, and we put it in the middle of the camp, where we can all hear, always hoping to get a message. That small old radio is our most valuable object. Your voice has been my hope, home, and anchor all these years.

They let me send a letter to Daniel on his birthday; I hope he got it. I wanted him to know how proud of him I am. He is just a child, but something in his voice shows he carries the weight of many years he hasn’t lived yet. He has the grounded, nostalgic soul of older people. I listened to him on the news, talking directly to a journalist and sending a message to my captors. Was he ever a kid? He knew too much about life too soon.

I often wonder what kind of father I am or would be if I had the chance. I imagine myself as a loving father who is also strict, but only because I want him to become a good man, someone honest and honorable, whom people around him can rely on. I see now that he is becoming that person already. And it’s all because of you. I am so grateful for the two of you and everything you do for me, for my freedom.

I pray for the day I can see you again. I dream about you, Carla. Your dark, candid eyes. Your skin. I think of you like you were the last time I saw you, and then I wonder how much you have changed. I have aged so much that I can barely recognize my face. Not that I see it often. Sometimes, I fear something inside me has hardened, and I ask God to help me. I dream about you, but I also know you need presence, love, and touch—someone to get to at the end of the day. I wouldn’t blame you. I never will. You gave me Daniel and have given him all I could not. You both have been my greatest blessing.

I still have faith that we will be together soon. I will meet our son and be the father I know I can be. I want him to know and feel that he is deeply loved. He gives me the strength to keep walking for miles through the mercilessness of nature. I have crossed rivers, seen snakes going out of the woods in the rain, and children being born in captivity. I have also seen trees bigger than I thought possible and majestic birds that never get close to the cities.

At least I will have stories for him. He can also get to know me through them, as they are already in my bones.

I love you more every day and will be back to you.

Edgar

La Cocha, Nariño, Colombia.

December 21st, 2011

My love,

I am at the lagoon where you proposed to me a lifetime ago. We were just kids watching the ducks getting under the freezing water.

I thought about coming here many times these years, but I just couldn’t. I couldn’t bear the anger and the resentment—the pain. The thing is that I truly believed that you were going to come back. Alive. I never lost faith, and now I wonder where God was while I prayed. I never imagined the next time I’ll see your body would be with your soul long gone. Still, I kissed it with my whole heart, even though you were not there anymore.

It’s been two years since your death, and I still don’t understand how could they do it. They lived with you day after day for years. They ate with you and walked through the same long, dangerous paths. I even wondered if they knew you better than I did at the end. Even so, they didn’t hesitate to shoot you when they heard the army too close. When they realized you were about to get rescued. They preferred you dead to free. It took them seconds. Did he look you in the eye? My heart aches with that question, and nobody will answer it. I hope this hunts them. I hope your face is the last thing they see when they close their eyes for the last time.

I’ve been so lost and confused these past years. I hated my impotence, naivety, and insignificance in the scheme of things. I hated how, for the world, this was just another story on the news that people would forget within hours. I felt like we were nothing to anyone anymore. I felt so disempowered and, at the same time, so guilty for having failed you somehow, like I could have done anything differently. I thought I would walk with my wounds open for the rest of my life.

Then, Daniel said something a couple of weeks ago, right before the anniversary of your death. While he arranged the flowers for the mass, he told me God had given him some clarity. He said the coup de grace -as they call it- took you from us but finally set you free. I have thought about it every moment since then.

You don’t have the chains you never wrote about, but I know you wore them. You are not hungry anymore. You are not lying on new ground every night, fearing it would be your last. You are not touching the metal mesh and barbed wire walls they built, hoping to be seen from the other side and found. You are not in fear anymore. You are not in pain. You can rest now, my love. You can finally rest, and I have to let you.

There are still ducks in this lagoon. They like to dive in the water again and again. They are just like I remember. I can’t say the same about myself.

I can feel you here. You are the breeze over the water. So sweet, so serene. Help me hold on to that. Please put some of that peace in my heart, too. Life is so strange, isn’t it? Now you will wait for me.

I love you and will love you forever.

Carla