LL THIS WEEK
ABOVE: Jorge Capera with his uncle Joaquin Avellaneda FACING PAGE: Joaquín Avellaneda with his son and nephews
© Claudia Capera
‘Losing my uncle to Covid-19’ JORGE CAPERA shares his personal story
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he oldest memory I have of my uncle is from one sunny morning when we were getting ready to go to a natural reservoir in the outskirts of Bogota, Colombia – my home country. I must have been six or seven and I was staying with my cousin, uncle and aunty for the weekend. My uncle was getting dressed while my cousin and I were watching some cartoons on the television. But just as he was about to put on his shirt, I noticed for the first time ever that he had a big burn scar covering the upper part of his back. I looked up to the gigantic man and asked him with the curiosity of a six-year-old child how he had got it. He answered with the seriousness of a three-year-old child: “I got bitten by an elephant” and started laughing. Two weeks ago, his laugh went quiet to be heard no more. He died of Covid-19 in a hospital 5,210 miles away from Liverpool, in Bogota. His death is one the 53,284 deaths related
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to Covid-19 registered in Colombia so far, and one of the 2, 212,868 registered worldwide. For many people those numbers may be just that: numbers. But for me these deaths – including the 105,777 registered in the UK at the time of writing – represent many giants that will laugh no more. My uncle was huge. I remember he would be towering over me when I was a child. Once my cousins and I started to grow, he would complain because “we were going to leave him behind”, feeling like a dwarf. That never quite happened. I remember I was so excited when his jumpers started to fit me that I kept one of them for a couple of months until my mom made me to return it. I just loved it. It had his vanilla and eucalyptus smell and would keep in its pockets all the receipts he had forgotten to throw away. I would breath deep whenever I had it on to feel his smell in my lungs. My uncle died connected to a
ventilator, unable to breathe for himself. He had entered the hospital a couple of weeks before and had been steadily recovering. The situation was so hopeful that my mom and grandma had made some traditional Colombian Christmas food for all my aunty, my cousin and him. One of my cousins ate his portion after flying all the way from Italy for his funeral.
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mass was celebrated for my uncle last week. I attended it on Zoom and was only able to understand half of the words people said in it, due to the joys of technology. His son gave a speech that ended up in tears and my cousin, who came from Italy, read a poem she wrote about how he has become one with the plants, trees and mountains that he loved so much, and all the teachings he is leaving behind. For me, these entail one dodgy driving lesson and many years of learning to never stop being childish
and playful, regardless of your age. Many have said that the most vicious part of the pandemic is that many people have not been able to say bye to their loved ones – and for me that is true. Nevertheless, technology shortens distances and even breaks the walls of hospitals down. In a short Christmas video my family and I were able to say to him that we were praying for his recovery and that we loved him a lot. His answer was a short message thanking us for looking after his wife and son while he was in hospital, along with a question about how my grandma was doing and a reassuring report of the respiratory treatment he was going through. That was Joaquín Avellaneda: a giant that cared for his family and never stopped being childish and funny; a giant that loved us a lot; a giant that was always looking forward to the next opportunity for making a joke about how he had been bitten by an elephant.
