MADRID, SEPTEMBER 2014
Alvaro del Portillo, bishop and former Prelate of Opus Dei
will be beatified tomorrow in Madrid.
200,000 pilgrims are expected to attend the ceremony
from 80 different countries.
AMELIA MORILLO-VELARDE: And when she told me she was coming to Spain
for the beatification,
I began thinking:
Where will they stay with so many children?
EDUARDO VILLA CORTA FRANCISCO'S FATHER
Some Spanish friends of ours that we met when we lived in Mexico
told us: "Don't go anywhere: You're staying with us!"
We said, "But there are ten of us!"
And they said, "Then come all ten! It's no problem at all. We can make room."
And sure enough, there we settled.
I had left the door open for the children because it was a such a nice evening.
Lalo (the father) was standing at the entrance to the backyard.
And when we entered the room, Chana asked Lalo
where the youngest one was: "Francisco? Where's Francisco?"
Everyone looked around, and no one knew where Francisco was.
So we said: "Let's look for him"
And I saw something bulging beneath a black float that my son uses
I started saying: "Oh please, no, no, no!"
Francisco was already floating face down in the pool.
I pulled him out of the water as if he were a children's doll. It felt horrible.
Those minutes were extremely difficult.
I just could not believe what I was seeing.
He looked like a corpse: all white, a bluish complexion, not moving ...
And I saw a completely unresponsive child.
ROXANA SALAZAR FRANCISCO'S MOTHER
He would not react. Lalo was crying.
And they were all pointing to the pool and crying.
The only one who remained calm was Chana, which is something that made an impression on me.
I remember that I said out loud: "Don Alvaro, we have come here
all ten of us for you, and you cannot do this to us."
While I was talking to the police,
a neighbor, a man who was working on the houses next door
came to help us.
I was doing some work, with some tools
RAFAEL VACA BALVÍN CONCIERGE
and I heard people screaming.
They were saying things like, "No, my God! This can't be! Why? Don Alvaro!"
We prayed Don Alvaro's prayer card, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be.
I turn around and a man approaches me grabs my arm and says, "What's the matter?"
I was at one time involved in the local firefighter squad back in my country, Peru,
and I gave the boy first aid, CPR
He began to revive him
and the baby began to take in oxygen again,
but his reactions were very, very weak.
Eventually three ambulances came. It felt like an eternity to me.
When the police arrived, they said it was cardiac arrest
and after arriving to the police station, they announced to us that the boy had no hope.
In Francisco's family,
they were all praying to Don Alvaro to please save him.
At least we knew his heart was working
because between the time that he had come out of the pool
and the arrival of the ambulance and checking of his vital signs,
they started telling us: "There are serious problems here."
We at least knew that there were some signs of life.
He was unconscious for a long time, very long.
I asked the doctors what might be the consequences,
what was going to happen, and they told me: "Right now we don't know anything."
He was taken to the ICU (Intensive Care Unit).
"He is alive now. We are helping him to breathe,
but his lungs are not well."
"We are almost sure that he will have brain damage. We are going to check."
"We do not know if he will die in the hospital."
I called my mom, my sisters, and my in-laws
and we asked them: "Pray for him."
We have come for the beatification, so we have to ask Don Alvaro that Francisco be alright."
If we just cry, we won't achieve anything - what we have to do is keep praying.
The news began to spread, and soon enough a prayer chain was formed
asking Don Alvaro for Francisco's recovery.
We were allowed to spend the night in the hospital with the baby.
The next day, we came to see the baby
and the nurse told us:
"He woke up."
Chana told me: "I heard him say 'Mama, mama' this morning". She then said: "The power of prayer"
The nurse said: "It's amazing what happened last night
all of a sudden, he started to react.
Normally in cases like this, given the state at which we receive the baby,
this could have lasted one month or even two."
They came on Thursday and left on Monday. They didn't even have to change their plane tickets.
The child fell into the pool, went to the hospital,
went to Intensive Care, was discharged from the hospital and they all went as planned to Rome,
because they had been chosen to bring up the gifts at the Mass of Thanksgiving
in Rome, at the second part of the beatification:
the first was in Madrid and the second was in Rome.
There was no lung damage
and later on they told us that there had been no damage to his stomach organs either.
"Doctor, according to you, how is he doing?"
And she told me: "To tell you the truth, he is doing well."
At the beginning, the prognosis was not going to be good, but there it is.
It really was a miracle. For the doctor as well.
God exists. God hears. God is present.
ROME, SEPTEMBER 2014
And this is what proved it for us.
Every time I see him, I feel so happy,
so cheerful.
We see him play, kick the ball and each day all we can say is "Thank you!"