‘I wake up with butterflies in my stomach, hoping it’s a bad dream’
Nadia Menezes Posted online: Saturday, January 01, 2005 at 0313 hours IST Updated: Saturday, January 01, 2005 at 0408 hours IST
December 31: The holly-covered Christmas wreath cellotaped firmly to the front door is the only indication that the Fernandes family celebrated Christmas.
The festive season took a devastating turn when a tsunami drowned a Car Nicobar air base in the wee hours of December 26, killing 23 of 627 Indian Air Force personnel. Seventy-six are still missing.
Among the dead is three-fourths of Navi Mumbai-based Cheryl Fernandes’s family. Younger brother Squadron Leader Celson Rodrigues (34), his wife Sunita (32), daughter Rhea—who would have turned three on February 13—and mother Lily (65) were swept away.
And while Celson’s body has been recovered, the rest of the family is still lost at sea.
In her four-month-old, freshly painted, one-bedroom flat in Airoli, Cheryl refuses to cry. Clad in a short, yellow maternity dress, the 36-year-old holds tight to baby Aira, born on August 25.
She’s just got off the walker following three months of post-pregnancy complications. ‘‘I have to accept this (tragedy),’’ says the former employee of a Pune-based multinational company.
‘‘I wake up with butterflies in my stomach,’’ she says, shaking her head, ‘‘hoping this is all a dream’’. Sleep is fitful.
She’s staying ‘‘strong’’, she says, for the sake of her first-born, who impervious to the tragedy, smiles happily through the feeder in her mouth.
The Rodrigueses—with roots in South Goa, they were born and raised in Pune—were a jovial bunch of three siblings. Father Manuel, who died in 1994, worked at the Ordnance Factory.
Cheryl was and remains ‘‘always smiling’’. Handsome Celson was ‘‘a wonderful person, always out to help’’. Bespectacled Clifford (30), based in Australia, is “fun-loving”.
Getting off a five-minute conversation with Clifford, who has called to check on developments and to confirm his month-long visit, Cheryl smiles at her youngest brother’s parting wish of ‘‘Happy New Year’’.
‘‘He hates that he wasn’t able to speak to Celson on Christmas day,’’ she explains. ‘‘He’s wishing me in advance just to be sure.’’
A mass for the souls of Cheryl’s deceased family will be held at the Airoli Chapel on January 7.
