Miracle in the Andes Page 25

  By the spring of 1978, my racing career was a memory, and Veronique and I had returned to Montevideo. In 1979 we were married. We moved into a small house in Carrasco and began to build a life together. Veronique found work as a model, and I discovered that I liked working at the hardware stores. Graciela and Juan had been working there for years, and together, with the guidance of my father, we built our business into the largest chain of hardware stores in the country.

  As years passed, other opportunities presented themselves. In 1984 I was asked to produce and anchor a show about motor sports for National TV Channel 5 in Uruguay. I had never been in front of a camera before, but it was a chance to be part of the racing world again, so I jumped at the chance. In TV, I found a new passion that grew into a second career. Today, Veronique and I produce and host five programs for Uruguayan TV, including shows on travel, nature, fashion, and current events. We are involved in every aspect of producing these shows—we do the writing, editing, and direction; we even select the music. The broadcasting work satisfies my appetite for creativity, and our success in that field has led to other businesses, including a cable TV company. We worked hard to build all these enterprises, and we have been blessed many times over with success. But the greatest blessing of our lives by far has been the births of our two daughters.

  Veronica was born in 1981. Until then, I had thought I could never love anything as much as I loved my wife, but when I gazed into my baby’s face, I was struck senseless by my love for her. Just moments after her birth, she had become yet another treasure in my life, and I knew I would die for her without hesitation. From the start, I savored every moment of fatherhood. I loved changing her diapers, feeding her, bathing her, putting her to bed. Sometimes I would hold her, amazed by the sweetness and perfection of her little body, and realize that if I hadn’t found my way out of the Andes, this beautiful little person would not exist. I felt a sudden, staggering sense of gratitude for the rich joys of my life—I had been given so much love and happiness—and I realized that every grueling step I had taken through that godforsaken wilderness was a step toward the tiny, precious miracle I held in my arms.

  Two and a half years later my daughter Cecilia was born after only five and a half months of pregnancy. She weighed only two and three-quarters pounds, and spent the first two months of her life in intensive care. There were many nights when the doctors told us to prepare for the worst, that we should go home and pray, and each of those nights was another Andes for me. But Veronique spent hours at the hospital every day, caressing our baby, speaking to her softly, coaxing her back to life, and slowly Cecilia grew stronger. Now both my daughters are beautiful young girls in their early twenties, full of life and spirit, and ready to face the world on their own.

  And as my daughters start out in life, my father enters his eighty-eighth year, still sound in mind and body. It is impossible to describe the closeness between us. In the many years since the Andes disaster, he has become more than a father to me; he is my closest and most intimate friend. We are bonded by our suffering and our losses, but also by a great sense of mutual respect and, of course, a deep, unquestioned love. I don’t know if my father has ever understood how important he was to me when I was lost. I’ll never forget what he told me, soon after I returned from the Andes. “I planned everything for you, Nando,” he said. “For Mami and Susy and Graciela. Everything was taken care of. I had written the story of your lives like a book. But I did not plan for this to happen. I did not write this chapter.”

  I understood that this was an apology. For all his efforts to keep us safe and happy, he had not been able to protect us, and somewhere in his heart was the notion that he had somehow let us down. I wanted to write this book to tell him he was wrong. He did not fail me. He saved my life. He saved me by telling me stories when I was a boy, and those stories helped me find my strength in the mountains. He saved me by working so hard, by never giving in, and by teaching me, through his example, that anything is possible if you are willing to suffer. Mostly, he saved me with his love. He was never an openly affectionate man, but I never doubted his love when I was a boy. It was quiet love, but solid and deep and enduring. When I was in the mountains, stranded in the shadows of death, that love was like a safety line anchored in the world of the living. As long as I held on to that love, I was not lost, I was connected to my home and to my future, and in the end it was that strong cord of love that led me out of danger. When he thought that all of us were dead, my father despaired, and in his pain he gave up his hope for us. But it was not his hope that I needed. He saved me simply by being the father I love.

  WHEN MY FELLOW survivors and I first returned from the mountains, our parents and teachers, worried that we’d been scarred by the horrors we’d faced, asked us to visit a therapist. As a group, we said no. We knew we had one another’s support, and for me that has always been enough. But even now, people are curious about the psychological effects of such an ordeal, and I am often asked how I have dealt with the trauma. Do I suffer nightmares? Flashbacks? Have I struggled with survivor guilt? These people are always surprised and sometimes, I suspect, dubious, when I tell them that I have experienced none of those things. I have lived a happy life since the disaster. I have no guilt or resentments. I look forward to tomorrow, and I always expect the future to be good.

  “But how is that possible?” they often ask. “How can you be at peace with life after what you suffered?” I tell them I am not at peace in spite of what I suffered, but because of it. The Andes took so much from me, I explain, but they also gave me the simple insight that has liberated me and illuminated my life: Death is real, and death is very near.

  In the mountains, there was never a minute that I did not feel death at my side, but the moment I stood on the summit of the mountain, and saw nothing but towering peaks as far as the eye could see, was the moment all my doubts were swept away and the certainty of my own death became viscerally real. The realness of death stole my breath away, but at the same time I burned more brightly with life than I ever had before, and in the face of total hopelessness I felt a burst of joy. The realness of death was so clear and so potent that for a moment it burned away everything temporary and false. Death had shown its face, dark, predatory, invincible, and for a split second it seemed that beneath the fragile illusions of life, death was all there is. But then I saw that there was something in the world that was not death, something just as awesome and enduring and profound. There was love, the love in my heart, and for one incredible moment, as I felt this love swell—love for my father, for my future, for the simple wonder of being alive—death lost its power. In that moment, I stopped running from death. Instead, I made every step a step toward love, and that saved me. I have never stopped moving toward love. Life has blessed me with material success. I like fast cars, good wine, fine food. I love to travel. I have a beautiful house in Montevideo, and another one at the beach. I believe life should be enjoyed, but my experiences have taught me that without the love of my family and my friends, all the trappings of worldly success would ring hollow. I also know that I would be a happy man if all those trappings were taken from me, as long as I am close to the people I love.

  I expect most people would like to think of themselves this way, but I know that if I had not suffered as I did, and had not been forced to stare death in the face, I would not treasure the simple, precious pleasures of my life as richly as I do. There are so many perfect moments in a day, and I don’t want to miss a single one—the smiles of my daughters, my wife’s embrace, a slobbering welcome from my new puppy, the company of an old friend, the feel of beach sand beneath my feet, and the warm Uruguayan sun on my face. These moments bring time to a stop for me. I savor them and let each one become a miniature eternity, and by living these small moments of my life so fully, I defy the shadow of death that hovers over all of us, I reaffirm my love and gratitude for all the gifts I’ve been given, and I fill myself more and more deeply with life.

 
IN THE YEARS since the disaster, I often think of my friend Arturo Nogueira, and the conversations we had in the mountains about God. Many of my fellow survivors say they felt the personal presence of God in the mountains. He mercifully allowed us to survive, they believe, in answer to our prayers, and they are certain it was His hand that led us home. I deeply respect the faith of my friends, but, to be honest, as hard as I prayed for a miracle in the Andes, I never felt the personal presence of God. At least, I did not feel God as most people see Him. I did feel something larger than myself, something in the mountains and the glaciers and the glowing sky that, in rare moments, reassured me, and made me feel that the world was orderly and loving and good. If this was God, it was not God as a being or a spirit or some omnipotent, superhuman mind. It was not a God who would choose to save us or abandon us, or change in any way. It was simply a silence, a wholeness, an awe-inspiring simplicity. It seemed to reach me through my own feelings of love, and I have often thought that when we feel what we call love, we are really feeling our connection to this awesome presence. I feel this presence still when my mind quiets and I really pay attention. I don’t pretend to understand what it is or what it wants from me. I don’t want to understand these things. I have no interest in any God who can be understood, who speaks to us in one holy book or another, and who tinkers with our lives according to some divine plan, as if we were characters in a play. How can I make sense of a God who sets one religion above the rest, who answers one prayer and ignores another, who sends sixteen young men home and leaves twenty-nine others dead on a mountain?

  There was a time when I wanted to know that God, but I realize now that what I really wanted was the comfort of certainty, the knowledge that my God was the true God, and that in the end He would reward me for my faithfulness. Now I understand that to be certain—about God, about anything—is impossible. I have lost my need to know. In those unforgettable conversations I had with Arturo as he lay dying, he told me the best way to find faith was by having the courage to doubt. I remember those words every day, and I doubt, and I hope, and in this crude way I try to grope my way toward truth. I still pray the prayers I learned as a child—Hail Marys, Our Fathers—but I don’t imagine a wise, heavenly father listening patiently on the other end of the line. Instead, I imagine love, an ocean of love, the very source of love, and I imagine myself merging with it. I open myself to it, I try to direct that tide of love toward the people who are close to me, hoping to protect them and bind them to me forever and connect us all to whatever there is in the world that is eternal. This is a very private thing for me, and I don’t try to analyze what it means. I simply like the way it makes me feel. When I pray this way, I feel as if I am connected to something good and whole and powerful. In the mountains, it was love that kept me connected to the world of the living. Courage or cleverness wouldn’t have saved me. I had no expertise to draw on, so I relied upon the trust I felt in my love for my father and my future, and that trust led me home. Since then, it has led me to a deeper understanding of who I am and what it means to be human. Now I am convinced that if there is something divine in the universe, the only way I will find it is through the love I feel for my family and my friends, and through the simple wonder of being alive. I don’t need any other wisdom or philosophy than this: My duty is to fill my time on earth with as much life as possible, to become a little more human every day, and to understand that we only become human when we love. I have tried to love my friends with a loyal and generous heart. I have loved my children with all my strength. And I have loved one woman with a love that has filled my life with meaning and joy. I have suffered great losses and have been blessed with great consolations, but whatever life may give me or take away, this is the simple wisdom that will always light my life: I have loved, passionately, fearlessly, with all my heart and all my soul, and I have been loved in return. For me, this is enough.

  TWO YEARS AFTER the miracle in the Andes, my father and I returned to the crash site in the High Andes near Sosneado Mountain. A route had been discovered, passable only in summer, leading from the Argentine foothills to the glacier where the Fairchild lay. It’s a grueling, three-day trip that begins with an eight-hour drive in off-road vehicles across the rugged terrain of the Andean foothills, then two and a half days on horseback. We forded a swift stream, then rode specially trained Andean horses along steep, narrow trails that wove up into the mountains above hair-raising drops to the rocky slopes below. We reached the base of the glacier at midday, then made our final climb to the gravesite on foot. The grave itself, built just after our rescue by air force members from Uruguay and Chile, sits on a rocky promontory jutting above the snow. Beneath the rocks lie Susy and my mother, along with the remains of the others who died here, all safely out of reach of the grinding glacier a few hundred feet away. It’s a simple shrine, just a pile of stones and a small steel cross rising above the grave. My father brought flowers and a stainless-steel box containing the teddy bear Susy had slept with every night of her life. He placed these gifts on the grave, and we stood there quietly in the silence of the mountains. I remembered that silence so well, a constant and absolute absence of sound. On calm days you hear nothing but your own breathing, your own thoughts. My father’s face was pale, and tears wet his cheeks as we shared this sad reunion, but I felt no pain or grief. I felt tranquillity in that place. There was no more fear there, or suffering, or struggle. The dead were at peace. The pure, perfect stillness of the mountains had returned.

  It was a bright, clear spring day. My father turned to me with a sad smile. He looked at the glacier, at the black peaks above us, at the wide, savage Andean sky, and I know he was trying to imagine this place in the cold months of early spring. He glanced at the remains of the fuselage. Was he seeing young boys huddled inside? Frightened faces in the dark and the cold, listening to the howl of the wind and the rumble of distant avalanches, with nothing to depend on but each other? Did he imagine me in this hard place, so frightened, so impossibly far from home, and longing so desperately to be with him? My father didn’t say. He only smiled tenderly, took me by the arm, and whispered, “Nando, now I understand …”

  We stayed at the gravesite for an hour or so, then made our way back down to the horses. We never thought, for a moment, about moving the bodies of our loved ones to a cemetery in the civilized world. As we descended the mountain, the grandeur of the Andes thundered all around us—so silent, so massive, so perfect—and neither of us could imagine a more majestic shrine.

  Epilogue

  EACH YEAR FOR the last thirty-odd years the survivors of the Andes disaster have gathered with their families on December 22 to commemorate the day we were rescued from the mountain. We celebrate this date as our common birthday, because on this day all of us were reborn. But it was more than life that was given to us; each of us came down from the mountain with a new way of thinking, a deeper appreciation for the power of the human spirit, and a profound understanding of what a wonder it is—for us, for anyone—to be alive. The ability to be truly alive and aware, to savor each moment of life with presence and gratitude, this is the gift the Andes gave us. A stranger may not notice the special warmth with which my friends embrace their wives, or the tenderness with which they caress their children, but I do, because like them I know these things are marvels. After we were rescued from the mountains, the newspapers called our survival “The Miracle of the Andes.” For me, the true miracle is that by living so long beneath the shadow of death, we learned in the most vivid and transforming way exactly what it means to be alive. This is the knowledge that bonds us all together, and while like all friends we have our share of conflicts and misunderstandings, and while life has led some of us far away from our home in Montevideo, we will never allow these bonds to be broken.

  Even today, more than three decades after the disaster, I think of all these men as my brothers. But no one has been a better brother to me than Roberto Canessa, my partner in that long trek through the Andes. Several
days into that journey, as we grew steadily weaker in the bleak terrain and hope seemed to fade with each step, Roberto pointed to the distinctive belt he was wearing. I recognized it as Panchito’s. “I am wearing the belt I took from the body of your best friend,” he said, “but I am your best friend now.”

  In that moment, neither of us trusted that we had any kind of future, but we did, and more than thirty years later I am proud to say that I am still best friends with Roberto, who has only grown more resourceful, more confident, and, yes, more hardheaded with the passage of time. These qualities, which made him such an important and difficult character in the mountains, have helped make him one of the most respected pediatric cardiologists in Uruguay and earned him a reputation as a man whose knowledge and skills are surpassed only by his ferocious determination to help his young patients. Most of the children Roberto treats are seriously ill, and it comes as no surprise to anyone who knows him that he will stop at nothing to help them. Once, for example, a good friend of his, who was head of cardiology at a hospital in New York, told Roberto that his hospital had a Doppler imaging machine they no longer needed. He offered it to Roberto, with the stipulation that Roberto would be responsible for transporting the machine to Uruguay. Roberto knew that such a machine would be a great help in treating his patients, and he also knew that his hospital in Montevideo could not afford such expensive technology. It took him only moments to make up his mind, and less than twenty-four hours later, Roberto was in New York taking possession of the equipment. With no clear plan for moving it, and no one to help him, Roberto loaded the bulky machine—it was the size of a small refrigerator—onto a handcart he had borrowed from the hospital’s maintenance department and wheeled it into an elevator. Moments later he was on a busy sidewalk, trying to flag down passing trucks. He stood there waving for a very long time, as traffic sailed by. No one seemed to notice him, but finally he caught the attention of the driver of a pick-up truck who agreed, for a fee, to take Roberto and the machine to JFK airport.