«You lose your family member and they break your life. We all received life imprisonment that day.”

2023-08-28 04:37:11

What would you do if your brother-in-law kills your sister?, your nephews lose their father and mother suddenly and you have to face the mortgage, car and school payments that she had, in full grief for their loss? «Well, you go into shock, they break your life, you and your whole family. You have to watch out for those children, but your sister has been murdered. The day before you had been with her and she said that it was the happiest moment of her life. The next they stab her.

Luz Marina Rodriguez, 52-year-old from Tenerife, mother of three children, continues: «It is that nobody expects it. You do not have things up to date, you do not know the accounts or payments you have with the murderer, the letters that remain, suddenly you assume even the IBI or the garbage tax… ». To the emotional hell is added the financial condemnation and the endless nightmare of paperwork. The story is stupefying, especially when talking about a family that has lost their sister at the hands of their partner since she was 14 years old, in the arms of their mother who struggled with the murderer and in the presence of their two children aged 5 and 8. years. It happened on February 20, 2013 when Luz’s family, the eldest of five siblings, broke up forever.

Guacy’s “Josito” (Guacimara Rodríguez, 35 years old), savagely killed this social worker, whom he had watched at all times since their separation. He got out of the elevator, and on the landing at the entrance to her mother’s house, where she had lived since they had decided to end the relationship, he ended her life. The “blood-stained little cardigan” of Guacy’s mother does not take the firstborn out of her head. Nor is it clear to her that her three children were in charge of her sister 24 hours before. They chatted in the same place where she found her criminal, she recalls for ABC a decade later.

Lucy, who works in a hospital and preceded her sister – “she was almost my equal” – in social work, says that it took her eight months to feel in her own skin again. She needed “a lot of therapy”, but the psychological support service had long since disappeared (another added expense). She and another brother (who eventually took custody) took care of their nephews, but removing parental authority from the murderer took 6-8 months and an endless stream of money had to be assumed: insurance, mortgage, car. .. «Lack of empathy. You are crying to your sister, in full mourning and the insurance asks you to prove with a medical report that she was ‘physically well’ the day before. ohBy God, they have murdered her! «Lucy shouts when she remembers. «I was leaving some paperwork and thinking: what did they tell me? You’re like stunned. And other times they said that ‘this’ only happens one out of every few times and that is why they lack a protocol in banks or offices to deal with these situations.

like a rare disease

Marisa Soleto, director of the Women’s Foundation, expresses it with a simile: «These families, who are direct victims of gender violence, face something like having ‘a rare disease’. They touch a thousand ticket offices and in each one they ask for something new, a role that they do not know, another position… It is unassumable ».

It acquires surreal overtones in the mouths of those affected. It’s “chaos,” Lucy describes. «I separated. Who puts up with someone who is so bad? You live being very tactful with those children who suffer their trauma, you have to take many steps when you ignore everything. She made up for the economic drain by “asking for loans,” but ran into crazy situations like the part of his sister’s house in the name of the murderer goes up for public auction. She is still immersed in that abyss.

Luz created the association ‘We are all Guacy’ for Advise those who after losing their family member they don’t know how to walk through a mountain of documentation. «Would it be so difficult to create a protocol that speeds up the procedures so that the duel is somewhat less burdensome?». He remembers the words of her mother, who repeats that “That day the whole family received life imprisonment.”