It was November 21, 2009; Saturday evening and I was at a national gymnastics competition, I had been waiting for this event since forever. Everything was going fine, I was ranking 1st place in my category and I was super pumped up, all of my routines were going perfect. About one hour and a half into the competition, I started messing up all of my routines and I couldn’t concentrate. I then started getting a feeling that something was wrong. I couldn’t stop this bad feeling in my stomach so I turned to look at my coach for reassurance and she was not in her place.  Huh, that's weird, she’s always watching me while I participate I thought to myself. Due to my coach being gone I looked at my mom for reassurance and she was crying while taking a phone call. “Something is definitely wrong” I said to myself. I couldn’t stop the nerves, I tried to go on with my routine but at this moment it seemed impossible, I felt a weird feeling rushing over me that I never felt before . My coach suddenly showed up and announced, 

“Euge, sorry to be telling you this but you need to leave, there´s been an emergency.”

I stood there speechless, my heart was pumping at an extremely fast pace and my nerves were at a really high level. I couldn’t wait to find out what the emergency was, it must be something horrible because it got to the point of me having to leave the biggest opportunity I’ve ever had in gymnastics. This anticipation of finding out what was wrong was killing me, tons of possibilities of what could have happened were rushing through my mind. “Come on Euge, you need to leave. Your parents are waiting for you at the door” my coach said. I was slowly approaching my parents, my mom couldn’t stop crying and my dad had a huge frown covering his face. “Mom,” I said while running into her arms, “What's wrong?” I asked.

“Your uncle Jorge has been in an accident, I need to head to his house immediately” My mom said with sad words.

“What, when, where, can I see him, is he hurt?” I kept asking questions. My head was spinning with thoughts and I was so overwhelmed, why was this happening to my favorite uncle ever.

“When he was in the ranch he had an accident, he was riding a horse and due to the horse getting crazy because of a snake, he fell of the horse and the horse stepped on him.”  I couldn’t believe the words that were coming out of my mom’s mouth, tears were streaming down my face but I knew this was not the 100% truth, my instincts were telling me something else. Later that day I realized I was lied to, my uncle supposedly had been assaulted but was able to escape and move to USA for several days. My heart was breaking into pieces, why would someone ever want to hurt my uncle, such a sweet, caring, humble, lovable person. Even though it took a lot of insisting to convince me this was true I was still not sure if that was the complete truth because I had this weird feeling in my gut.

Sunday Morning, I woke up and walked downstairs to greet my family but soon realizing that they were all gone except my older brother Juan. “Juan, where is everybody?” No answer. “Juan, where is everybody” I asked again more eagerly and then again, no answer. “Juan what's wrong, why aren’t you answering?” Juan then turned around and I finally saw his bloodshot eyes, that´s when I realized he had been crying recently and that is really rare because Juan never cries.

“Euge, there’s something you don’t know yet, go to grandmas house and they’ll soon break the news to you” my brother told me.

“What do you mean more lies?” I growled, I was sick of lies, I wanted to know the 100% truth of what happened to my uncle.

“I'm sorry, I truly understand you. I get you’re frustrated and that you want to know everything but it’s hard needing to tell you this because we all know how much care and you are so young”

“No! No!” I interrupted my brother “you don’t understand, don't act like you do, this is impossible, I had a true connection with him, he was my favorite uncle and I don’t know when I’ll get to see him again.” At this point I was hysterical, tears were streaming down my face at a past velocity and I couldn’t stop them.  Later that day when I was ready to hear the news I went to my grandmas house. “Mom, dad, grandma, grandpa” I yelled at the top of my lungs “I’m here”

“Euge, darling how are you?” My grandma greeted me
“Hi grandma, I’m fine” I was not in the mood to talk, I just wanted to hear the news. “So… tell me the news already please, I want to go home” At that moment my mom arrived, she greeted me and told me to take a seat because I might take the news in a wrong way.

“Euge, I have no idea how to say this, we lied to you. I’m sorry, we had to do this to protect you but I guess you now need to know because you’re a smart girl and you’ll catch on sooner or later.”

“Mom, tell me! I’m tired of waiting and I want to know the 100% truth of what happened to my uncle, I feel like I’m talking to the air because you tell me the “truth” but then I realize you’ve lied to me again, this is bullshit just tell me the truth please. NO more lies this time”

“Sweetie, I’m so sorry you truly need to understand that we did this to protect you, the truth is that your uncle has been kidnaped in the way out of the ranch. Police officers found his car opened and turned on in the middle of the street with bullets going through the windows.”

At that moment while hearing those words repeating in my mind I felt lost in a dark room, where everything surrounding me were flames and violence. Every second that passed made everything come closer, I couldn’t breath. Words were trying to come out of my mouth but it was impossible, my breathing was stuck in my throat. I felt pain physically and emotionally; I did not know what to say. Thoughts were soaring through my mind and I couldn’t wrap the thought of my uncle being gone in my head. After this day everything was the same, my family and I were struggling to accept that our family member was gone, a great father, son, uncle, husband and friend. Family members who lived far away came to Monterrey to be here for the family and to get through this together, the support we were receiving from all kind of people was immense and we are forever grateful for it. My family and I missed school for several days due to security and when we got back to school the support was incredible, for a moment It took me out of my misery and they actually made me happy for several hours. The kidnappers stayed in contact with my family for a few weeks and even allowed some members of my family to hear my uncles voice. The amount of hope we had to be reunited with my uncle was huge, that christmas my only wish was to get my uncle back but unfortunately that wasn’t reached. After a few weeks the kidnappers stopped contacting my family and we all became desperate, at that moment our hope was pointless. 2 years passed and we were completely hopeless, my family was shattered, my grandma was diagnosed with depression and nobody was happy, we had no sign of my uncle. A few more months passed and finally the police found his body, my family hosted a funeral but trust me it was damn hard. Another reminder that my uncle was eternally gone and we did not say goodbye it was all just so unexpected.

Living through a kidnap is really challenging especially if you are young while you are experiencing it. The kidnappers did not only take my uncle, they took my privacy, my childhood and a huge part of me. While experiencing this I had to go through lots of challenges, at the age of 9 I had to be strong and mature for my family because I lost my uncle but other members of my family lost their father, son, husband or brother and I had to be strong for them. Weakness was not an option at this point because If we were all sad my family would have completely broken apart. Instead of being out in the park, parties or in the movies with my friends I had to be taking care of my grandparents, cousins, aunt etc. My privacy was completely lost I now always have someone following me around while I do things I would prefer doing alone with friends just because it’s “insecure” and “risk-taking” for me to be alone without someone protecting me. Losing a loved one at such a young age truly affected me, it changed me and I'm never going to be the same person I was before that day. This made me realize how lucky I am to have such an amazing supporting family who will be there for me . When you lose a loved one it can rip families apart or bring them together. My family was affected in both ways when this happened, of course it hurt like hell and it ripped us in pieces but at the same time it brought us together. It was the first time when we truly all understood each other, we could understand what we were feeling and we were grieving for the same person, we felt the same pain and we experienced this emptiness in our hearts at the same time. 6 years later and I’m here, telling you my story as if it was yesterday, I remember this moment detail by detail as if it were a movie I saw everyday. It was hard experiencing this moment because having to see my family so broken and hurt really affected me but know I tell this story with my head up high and a grin in my face because I had the opportunity to meet such and amazing uncle and this experience made me stronger as a person. Of course there’s some days when I remember my uncle and cry myself to sleep but this experience made learn many things of my family and made me grow maturely as a person and made me more conscious of the people I have with me today and how much I should appreciate them. I now live life to the fullest with a positive mind and try to stay happy with everyone because you have no idea when they’ll be gone. This made me conscious that in a second everything can change, I realized life changes.