The night that changed their lives
The night of March 31, 1973 It started like any other. His father had left the house and his mother was in charge of getting the four children ready for bed. However, instead of putting them in pajamas, he dressed them in the clothes they used to go out. He told them that they would go for a walk on a warm, clear night.
The brothers received the news with enthusiasm.. For children of that age, a night out with their mother was a novelty that broke the routine.
They walked through the farm until they reached a well used to supply water to the crops. It was a place they knew perfectly well because they passed by it every day. There occurred what would forever mark the family’s history.
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According to Teresita, years later, her mother sat the four children on the edge of the well. In a matter of seconds, the brothers fell into the water. She remembers the fear, the darkness and the feeling of disappearing beneath the surface.
Carlos was the only one who knew how to swim and managed to react in the midst of the chaos, he clung to a metal structure of the engine installed inside the well and managed to grab his sister to keep her afloat.
That image remains intact in Teresita’s memory more than five decades later: that of a nine-year-old boy trying to save his sister in the middle of a situation he could barely understand.
More than five decades later, Teresita has no doubts about the role her brother played that night. “Carlos is the key figure. I owe it to him that I am alive today. When I was drowning, he pulled my hair with all his might to pull me up because he was the only one who knew how to swim,” Teresita recalls in an interview with The Observer.
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Carlos’s recent decision to speak publicly also surprised her. “He always put up an impenetrable wall regarding our history. But I felt proud of him because I believe that at some point in our lives we must give closure.but above all with the truth. And there is only one, he and I know it.”
According to Teresita, Carlos’s decision to break the silence began to take shape this year, after the publication of information that both considered wrong about the case. “He called me immediately. For the first time he told me about his need to go out and give his testimony. to clarify some points,” he recalls.
Miguel Ángel, six years old, and Marisol, three years old, did not survive. Carlos and Teresita managed to stay alive until several hours later when a man who was passing through the area heard the screams and notified the authorities. Firefighters and police rushed to the scene and rescued the survivors.
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The months at the Hospital de Clínicas
The physical consequences for Teresita were serious. Passed more than two months hospitalized in the Hospital de Clínicas recovering from injuries suffered during the fall.
During much of that period No one informed him that his two younger brothers had died. Every time I asked about them, family and doctors They tried to protect her with evasive answers. They told her that they were fine, that they were waiting for her at home and that she would see them again when her recovery was finished. The truth would come later, along with the difficult task of learning to live with an absence that would mark the rest of his life.
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Over time, the tragedy became one of the most remembered police cases in the country. For years, much of the public attention was focused on the judicial investigation and the different versions surrounding the events. However, for the survivors the story was never just a police case.
The need to tell the story
For Teresita, furthermore, it was a story that took decades to tell. Only in 2017 did he manage to put a good part of those memories into Daughter of pain Sister of deathan autobiographical book in which she reconstructed her childhood, the tragedy that struck her family and the emotional consequences that accompanied her for much of her life.
Although the case was recorded in the collective memory of Uruguayans, Teresita assures that a good part of her history remains unknown. “Many people associate me with tragedy through my last name. In the book I tried to show my essence, but being realistic the story is even more complex. To protect myself there were topics that I addressed in a more superficial way,” he mentions.
Far from seeking judicial answers, the story functions as an exercise in personal memory about a wound that will never fully heal. For Teresita the tragedy was the loss of two brothers, the definitive fracture of a family and the beginning of a life marked by questions that are difficult to answer.
When she talks about Miguel Ángel and Marisol, Teresita tries to make the memory go beyond the tragedy. “They are my guardian angels throughout my life. I always turn to them to enlighten me. I just want people to know that they were two little ones who sacrificed their innocent lives paying for the mistakes of sick people.”
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That’s why Carlos’s recent public appearance has a special meaning for her. Not only because it puts the focus back on a story that both shared, but because it allows us to remember that behind one of the most shocking police episodes in Uruguay there were two children who grew up carrying the same memory.
One chose silence for decades, the other found different ways to reconstruct what she had experienced, but both remain united by that night in March 1973 in which tragedy struck her family and in which a brother became the reason a sister was able to stay alive to tell the tale.
The relationship between the two was not easy either. After the tragedy they grew up together under the care of their father, but as the years went by, life took them on different paths. “Carlos became independent when he was very young and in those years the communication that we have today did not exist. Unintentionally, and due to life situations, we took different paths and drifted apart.“Teresita recalls.
He also recognizes that there were family wounds that marked that bond. “Carlos was always my father’s favorite and I had to carry the weight of being an unloved daughter.. It was very difficult for me to accept it. Only as an adult, in therapy, I was able to understand that There are parents who decide to humiliate, despise and make a child feel like he was a burden in their life.“.
“There is always a light”
For Teresita, the publication of her book was much more than an exercise in memory, it was also part of a personal process of reconstruction.
“Being able to write my true story was first part of my therapy. Even today I continue to seek healing for my soul. Many times I told my psychologist that one day I was going to shout my truth to the world to get rid of so much hatred and terror accumulated inside me.“, account.
For years, she says, the most difficult thing was growing up “full of fears and insecurities”, feeling alone and without references. “I didn’t have a guide, a support. I felt devalued and useless for everything“, remember.
The question of forgiveness remains one of the most complex, confesses to The Observer. “I have spent years questioning whether or not I should forgive.. I am not a God to do it. Today I can hardly say that I can understand some things and accept others, but I do not feel that I am the one who should forgive so much cruelty and evil“he explains.
When you think about that eight-year-old girl who survived the tragedy, you imagine a simple message. “I would hold her tight and protect her from everyone. I would tell you that, no matter how difficult or serious what you are experiencing, scream for help. Make sure that someone is going to listen to you and help you.”
Despite everything, he assures that he managed to find reasons to keep going. “Happiness in my life was intermittent, but I got strength from I don’t know where and I was able to continue. Today it makes me happy to be a mother; My son is the air and the reason why I gave up making a mess so many times.. I have also been married for 13 years to a good man who knows absolutely my entire story. I have a job that I love and, until today, a clear and healthy mind. I don’t think I can ask for much more after all the obstacles I was able to overcome.“, he summarizes.
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More than fifty years later Teresita continues to live with that night, but also with the conviction that surviving had a meaning. “My purpose today is to help so many Teresitas who I know are suffering and feeling like they can’t take it anymore.. I want to tell you that, despite everything and everyone, there is always a light that will light the way for us,” he concluded.
