A few setbacks don’t define luck

By Edgar Sandoval
Summer 1999 Scholar

Posted: March 24, 2000

Ah, November, the luckiest month of my life.

My good luck this past year began on Nov. 16, my birthday. I rushed home after work and ran to the phone. I was sure my answering machine would be full of messages. You know, it being my birthday and me being away from home and all, and Latino and family togetherness being what it is.

Only one new message. My mom, I guess. No, it's my brother in Arizona. My mom will call, I tell myself. I mean, she is my Mom.

The evening passed.

And the night.

A day later she calls and tells me she fell asleep. "Sorry … and I forgot to send you a birthday card … and you know I love mijo, my son. We are very proud of you here in Texas … and good luck to you in Los Angeles, my boy at the Los Angeles Times."

Of course, Mom. Thanks.

As I get older – gulp, 24 now – I am learning that people have things to do besides sending birthday cards.

My luck started in earnest a few days after my birthday. My editor called at 6:30 p.m. and told me to go to a local university and get some quotes from students for a reaction to the Texas A & M bonfire tragedy.

Call me by 7 p.m. with the quotes, he said.

Sure, I answered before he could even finish the sentence.

I rush to the street and start driving. A few blocks later, a police officer stops me. I want to tell him: Mac, I'm on deadline here. I need to impress my bosses and get the quotes, and these minutes I'm wasting with you giving me a ticket could well define my future in journalism.

They need my quotes! I want to scream.

But I didn't say a thing. I feared I would waste more time if I pleaded for clemency. I accepted my guilt and drove off. (Okay, I got the quotes, but they were a half-hour late.)

The luckiest day of all began on the first day of the last week of my lucky month, November. I had a big scoop for the paper. Los Angeles cops were going to arrest two alleged gang members who had been involved in a drive-by shooting that killed a boy. The detective told me to meet him at 5 sharp. That's a.m.

I woke up at 4:30 the next morning and once again rushed to my car. I couldn't believe what I saw. Somebody had thrown a beer bottle through the rear window. Maybe it was a divine sign to stay home. I glanced again and noticed that the glass was totally smashed. I cursed and kicked my car. But that was not going to solve the problem. I still had a story to report. I got into my Chevy Malibu and sped away. I could feel the chilly air making its way in. Tiny particles of glass grazed my already-apple-red cheeks.

No matter. I still have a story to catch. I have to make it. Have to get there, get there on time.

I arrived at the police station and met the photographer. His eyes were half closed. I wanted to moan about my morning but decided it was better not to. So we followed the police to a house in south central Los Angeles. The cops went in and came out with a man in handcuffs.

The photographer snaps photos. I take notes. This is journalistic heaven. I get back to the paper to write my story. Make one last call to fact-check something. Then I get the news.

Sorry, man, we didn't have enough evidence to keep the suspects behind bars.

No murder charges, no story, my editor says.

No story. Okay, I say, and walk away.

I cursed my birthday and cursed the day I got the ticket, cursed my broken car window, which the insurance company refused to cover, and cursed the would-be great story that died before it was written.

I could have packed it up and called it a day.

But I didn't.

Maybe I could salvage the story if I call the boy's family, I thought. Yes, That's it. So I called the mother of the dead boy.

That's when my true luck began. I called her to get her side of the story. Her voice was soft and fragile. I did not see her face, but I could hear her pain.

She told me how she wanted to die, like her baby, how she hugs a photo of her Elijah every morning to feel he is alive. How reality then hits her and she remembers the night, the moment, her 8-year-old son died.

Sometime after 10 p.m. one night in early August, Elijah and his mom visited a friend in south central Los Angeles. The boy ran downstairs to make sure the front door was locked. A car driven by alleged gang members cruised slowly in front of the house.

There were a few people standing nearby. Then gunshots. A bullet went straight to little Elijah's head, into the left side of his brain.

Maria Avina heard the shots and ran for her son. She found him lying on the ground, blood dripping from the back of his head. Somehow, in that moment, she knew she would no longer see her boy run, see him jump, hear his sweet laugh. He would no longer call to her, "Hey momma," with the street accent he had begun to pick up from neighbors.

That terrible feeling paralyzed her. No more Elijah. The only thing she could do was hold him and hope that his eyes would open. That he would walk again. The only thing she could do was cry for help and blame herself for being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The only thing she could do is hold her baby and cry, cry until her eyes dried all the way through to her soul.

On the phone, she tells me how she consoles herself by knowing that the killers could not end her boy's life completely. Elijah is no longer alive, but in his death he helped others to live. She is calmer.

She donated his organs, she says. Today, Elijah lives inside five other people.

I hung up the phone, overcome, angry, sad, frustrated. But, most of all, ashamed. Ashamed for whining over a few setbacks, a ticket and a window when there is real suffering out there. It was then that I saw how very lucky I am.

I am lucky to have all of my family members alive, to have a reason to wake up every morning, to have a career ahead of me that allows me the honor of witnessing people's lives, to be a journalist.

Yes, I am lucky.

Edgar Sandoval was a Summer 1999 Scholar who interned at The Tennessean in Nashville. He was working as an interning at the Los Angeles Times when he wrote this column. Reach him at EdJSandoval@aol.com.

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