Somewhere between Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, at approximately 30,000 feet. My Mom and I were flying back to our home in Brazil (from Argentina) when I heard the flight attendant speak to the cabin: "Ladies and Gentlemen, we regret to inform you Mexico City has been hit by a major earthquake and the city has now disappeared. Our personnel will be glad to assist passengers with connecting flights as soon as we land in Guarulhos International Airport, bla bla"
My sister, two of my brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, and many friends all dead? My heart sunk.
My Mom remained calm, reassuring me everything was surely ok and the flight attendant was very poorly informed. As soon as we landed in Sao Paulo she was able to get a flight to Mexico, she gave me a few Amex travelers cheques and I was to continue straight to Recife (my hometown then), but I didn't.
The next leg of my trip was a stop in Rio with a connecting flight, which I was able to change, as I planned to skip school some more and spend a few days back in Rio before going back home.
Then another earthquake hit Mexico City again, and I knew my Mom's flight had landed by then, So I flew back to Recife immediately,
My stepdad was traveling with his political party, so only the maid was home, Edivaldo (the chauffeur) was away as well, driving my stepdad. Teachers and classmates at the American School were always incredibly nice, always asking me if I had any news and if my loved ones were ok...
By now I wasn't sure if even my Mom was ok. This was all pre-cellphones, pre-twitter, pre-youtube, pre-liveleak, fuck, it was even pre-email, only airports and travel agencies had fax machines, my only source of communication was through a Telex, at the Consulate, from which I never got any news from my siblings.
The pictures on TV, the constant reminder of the destruction, but above all, the uncertainty of having lost some of the closest people in my life was devastating. So I did what any young man does in that situation, which was to raid all the booze at home. My Mom and stepdad kept a large pantry filled with Stolichnaya and Tequila (and I hate tequila) so the vodka and I became best friends... I was 15 years old.
I'm pretty sure my friend (and classmate) Augusto figured out what was going on, so he kept inviting me to come over to his place. Once I got there his Mom insisted I spend the night (there was even a spare bed in his room), by the very next day I was almost instantly "adopted" into the family, and that was the first time I experienced the difference between a house and a home (which I hadn't really had till then).
My Mom thought my stepdad was home, my Stepdad thought I was in Mexico with my Mom, so it was about 3 months till they made their way back home.
That was almost 30 years ago (September 2015) so I'm hoping to fly back to see my adopted Mom and my adopted brother, as I miss them every single day and haven't been able to fly down there to see them since I left in 1989.
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