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Friday, February 05, 2010
Better Times May Be Ahead
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Journal Staff Writer
You can see it in the eyes of the two women, weary and sad, though they try to look cheerful and brave for me.
But eyes don't lie. And sometimes eyes say more than words can.
I am seated with the women at Carrie Tingley Hospital in Albuquerque. They are the mothers I wrote about Monday, how their young families were shattered by an icy patch of highway and an oncoming tractor-trailer.
Their sons — fourth-grader Luis Vazquez and cousin Edgar Cabrera, a first-grader — attend Whittier Elementary School in Albuquerque. When word spread of the Dec. 31 crash, the Whittier community rallied around their families.
And so did you.
Can I just say that I love you people?
After the column was published, Whittier Principal Cindy Bazner said the donations picked up.
"People showed up at our school with lots of clothes for the kids, games, stuffed animals, bedding, wipes and, oh, yes, diapers," she says. "They said they felt really bad for the families. Their story touched them, like they wanted to do something to help out."
Checks from Taos to Socorro and points in between came in to the Albuquerque Public Schools Foundation, which set up the Valles-Vazquez fund, named for the two mothers.
"When the foundation folks checked their mailbox, there was just a gazillion checks in there," Bazner says. "This has been the coolest thing."
This morning, the staff at Whittier was expected to present the mothers with a disbursement check for $5,334 — the total received as of Wednesday.
That's not counting the handmade blankets from Project Linus, offers I have fielded from readers with places for the families to stay, and a fundraising effort just getting under way by Youth Development Inc. that includes a Super Bowl cookout Saturday and a sleep-out by YDI staffer Steven Gutierrez starting Sunday (let's hope for good weather).
But when I meet with the women, it is a day before the check presentation. They are unaware of the magnitude of support that is about to come their way.
Maria Vazquez, Edgar's mom, still uses crutches five weeks after the crash, her healing pelvis and leg still causing her nearly constant pain.
The greater pain, though, comes from losing her husband, Luis Martin Cabrera, who was driving when the vehicle slipped and spun and sliced into the path of the semi on I-40 near Grants.
Too disabled to work and with her husband gone, Maria and Edgar and baby daughter Estefani lost their home and are forced to bunk with relatives.
Rosa Valles, whose third child is due early next month, and daughter Elizabeth, 3, came out of the crash unscathed, physically at least. But her son, Luis, suffered a severe brain injury.
This is why we are here at the hospital. This is where Luis is recuperating and where Rosa lives for the most part, sleeping in his room at night and rarely leaving her son's side for more than an hour at a time.
"He needs to be watched 24 hours," she says through our interpreter, Urszula Zimowski, a staff member at Whittier. "I need to be here."
Because of her bedside vigil, Rosa lost her job, then her home.
For now that is OK. Doctors have told her Luis will need at least three more weeks of hospitalization and therapy.
After that, she is not sure what will happen.
"Perhaps, we will find a home together," she says, looking at Maria.
Luis curls next to his mother, grants me a rare smile or two.
"I want to get out of here," he says shyly.
A large crescent-shaped scar swings across his forehead. A patch of hair that had been shaved after the crash is growing back. His left side remains a bit weaker than the right.
Those are the only outward scars of the trauma that kept him in an induced coma for 10 days as doctors tended to the swelling in his brain.
Two weeks ago, his mother says, Luis started showing signs of recovery.
"It's a big, big change," Rosa says.
But as Luis improves, so does his memory of the crash.
"He is starting to remember," she says. "He is starting to get sad."
Edgar, too, has started waking up at night crying for his father, his mother says.
They have a long way to go.
Your donations, though, may make the beginning of their journey back a bit easier.
The women say they are grateful for the support they have received from the hospital, from the Whittier community and from all of you.
"Please just make sure to say how thankful we are to every person in our hard time of grief," they say.
Today, for at least a moment, I hope their eyes see a better day ahead.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. You can reach Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@ abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg.
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