Jorge Cruz

NOTE: Davidson resident Gloria Lawing has provided these thoughts about the death of Davidson resident Jorge Fiscal Cruz, who died Nov. 26 of injuries suffered when he was hit by a car Nov. 18. She is helping to raise a memorial fund. Details at the end of the article.

BY GLORIA LAWING

They come in droves, crossing the Arizona Desert or the Rio Grande at night, hoping and praying for survival, for the slightest chance at their share of the American Dream. They come to build a home in their country and to allow their children to study, providing for better opportunities than they themselves received, forced to leave school after sixth grade in order to work and raise younger siblings.

The plan is simple: Arrive in the country, work a few years, and wire almost all of their money home. Life is not easy for these immigrant men. Many times their bosses rent homes that house eight men or more. They work together in restaurants without even a lunch break, go home together, and occasionally are given days off – sometimes after working two or three consecutive weeks. These days off are the only times that they have to go to the Mexican grocery stores in order to send money orders home. But what happens when things don’t go according to plan?

On Nov. 18, Jorge Fiscal Cruz set off on his bicycle to the Tienda Maria la Mexicana in Cornelius, so he could send money home to his wife, Maria Luisa. It had been a good week at the Davidson restaurant where he was a cook.

Jorge rode his bicycle quickly to avoid being in the nippy air for long. He could see the store in front of him when he crossed the road. Suddenly, he was hit by a car traveling at 30 mph, a collision that threw him off his bicycle and head first onto the pavement.

He was taken to Carolinas Medical Center, and for a week, his status was touch and go. He seemed to be improving, receiving leg and face operations and occasionally breathing on his own. On night before Thanksgiving, however, things took a turn for the worse.

Valentín Fiscal Cruz, Jorge’s brother, arrived at the hospital after a day of work as a chef. Valentín arrived in good spirits, thinking he would visit with his brother for an hour or two, be told more good news, and then go home. Instead, the nurse met him at the door telling him that a C-scan had been performed on Jorge, whose left pupil had become widely dilated in the last few hours.

The possibility of brain damage would be great if Jorge did not improve through the night. The number on the machine measuring the pressure in Jorge’s brain read 40, when under 20 is ideal. It was 11 p.m. An hour later, the number read 50. In the morning, it had climbed to one hundred, as Valentín waited in the hospital waiting room agonized, calling the family in Mexico every few hours to break the hardening news.

At 5 a.m., the number was 103. His interpreter was informed that after 100, the number cannot climb much higher and begins to fall, after which brain damage is declared.

As Valentín’s interpreter and friend, I slept in the waiting room with him, checking on Jorge every few hours, as Valentín could not bear to see his brother. At 5 a.m., the young doctor, physically distraught, told me that we would not prolong the suffering much longer. A new shift of workers would arrive at 6:00 and death would be declared.

At the slightest move I woke up, waiting for the nurse to fetch us. At 9 a.m. after a night of tears and fitful sleeping, Valentín woke up and we walked to Jorge’s room together. A team of workers was present: the doctor and nurse, a medical tester, a Chilean interpreter, and a Puerto Rican chaplain. We were told that a series of tests of Jorge’s reflexes would be performed to see if any life remained.

When Jorge failed to respond to the oxygen tests, he was declared dead at 10:15 a.m. He was 29 years old.

Jorge had agreed to be an organ donor. His father, Roberto Fiscal Chiguil, had a hard time understanding the process of organ donation. During a conference call, on a speaker phone with Valentín, myself, the chaplain, the nurse, and the family life counselor present, he was asked to say “yes” one by one, as she read, “Heart? Lungs? Pancreas? Kidney? Liver? Eyes?”

“They want to rob his organs?” Roberto could barely hear the call between the throng of mourners in his home and the cries of the rooster and dogs outside his home in in San Andres Tuxtla, Veracruz, Mexico.

“Pa, enfócate en eso, que sus organos pueden ayudar a mucha gente. Father, focus on this: His organs can help many people,” Valentín said through his tears.

Finally, “Qué más da?” “Why not?” Roberto conceded.

It was the first time he had ever been told of organ donation, and here he was donating what was left of his eldest son, far away in a country that was not his own.

When we walked back to his Jorge’s room, a dozen of his friends were surrounding his bed in disbelief. One by one they left and cried upon hearing the news.

The days following have been torment for Valentín. As Jorge’s only family member in the United States, he is responsible for everything on his own: Writing an obituary, gathering his brother’s belongings to send to his wife back home, anxious to speed up the process of one week to send his brother’s body to Mexico.

“I would carry him on my back, if I only I could,” he said.

Jorge’s family is left with his hospital bills and the $4,000 cost of shipping the body home to Mexico. His wife’s family is also left without their sole source of income, and the education and future of his four stepsons uncertain.

The Mexican embassy has provided $1,000 and another $1,000 has come in from Davidson United Methodist Church, St. Alban’s Episcopal Church and the Ada Jenkins Center.

To donate to the family of Maria Luisa Chapol, write to: Jorge Fiscal Cruz Memorial Fund, c/o Gloria Lawing, PO Box 1774, Davidson, NC, 28036.

Gloria Lawing lives in Davidson and is a volunteer at Ada Jenkins Center.

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