Hay difficult expressions to forget. They mark you forever, because they also submerge you in a deep meditation questioning the value of life, friendship, profession…
I lived one of them a few days ago. When I got home, in the afternoon, I found my father devastated. The sadness in his eyes was touching. She had rarely seen him like this, with his head buried between his shoulders. No matter how much it took him to find out what was wrong, he couldn’t manage to mumble words: every time he tried to speak, her voice cracked and her eyes watered.
“It is because of the death of Ocha Rosado in a traffic accident…”my mother answered me, consoling him by her side.
“Ocha was one of the journalists who most admired in the city, for his compromise and responsibility professional, for his humility and his people skills, his smile and permanent humor. We shared little, but my affection and admiration was great and I had no qualms about expressing it every time I saw her…”my father confessed to me several hours later, already somewhat recovered.
That night we talked long. I felt my obligation to accompany him, even at the cost of various personal commitments. But it was worth it. That night I better understood my father, whom I questioned many times, like my younger sisters, for dedicating little time to us right in our adolescence, just when we needed it most.
“Real journalism demands full time, sacrifice, complete dedication; It is an apostolate that is exercised even at the expense of the family, even knowing that it can cost you your life. I lived that passion like director of El Pilona passion fed back by that valuable group of journalists who learned and taught, who exposed their freedom and their lives from the newspaper newsroom. That’s how I learned to love journalism and value the sacrifice of its professionals, dedicated with body and soul despite not being sufficiently paid. Perhaps that condition of martyrs – because of their exposure, because of their little remuneration – makes them a True family, solidarity, united. Ocha was part of the journalistic family…”my father whispered.
The rest of the night I spent repeating in my memory the heartfelt words of my father; It was a never-ending monologue, but mind-blowing and illustrative. I not only understood him, and I justified him in his absence; I also fully understood the heroic exercise of journalism, capable of undressing miseries in a world that escalates its filth, its corruption every day, in a world that covers citizen banality with its complicit cloak. Yes, I understood the heroic mission of journalism, that by revealing what others corrode and many cover up, they earn the wrath of the bosses.
I finished learning the lesson the next day, when I accompanied him to the vigil in the burning room in the Rafael Carrillo Luquez departmental library. It was a mass tribute: Valledupar was present to say goodbye with honors, to cry his eyes out, two members of the journalistic family who had left prematurely, Jairo Araujo and Ocha Rosado. he was deserved tribute for a promising young man in audiovisual production and for an exceptional and virtuous woman who endeared herself to her people skills and her professionalism. But it was also a tribute, as I corroborated when conversing with several fellow members, for the journalism in its essence, which has given so much light to the country, the region and Valledupar in particular.
And yes, I more than corroborated the deep and vital bonds of friendship generated among journalists, forming, at least in our region, a great family, supportive, sisterly, buddy. “It is not blood ties that make a family, but friendship”. A true family, united as never before by the tragedy that claimed the lives of two of its members. You had to see the pilgrimage, the pain reflected on their faces, the supportive embrace between them, the almost primitive unit…
Faced with incontrovertible truths like this, I can’t help but guess these lines to pay my own heartfelt tribute to Jairo and Ocha; and to extend the homage, convinced of its merit, to the great journalistic family. My readers, and the journalists themselves, will be able to excuse me if the veiled intention of honoring my father.
I raise my prayers for the eternal rest of Ocha and Jairo, and for the happy recovery of the companions in the accident, Jorge Laporte, Jaider Santana, William Vega and Jorge Giraldo.
By Camilo Quiroz Hinojosa