I can still feel the dampness of the cemetery earth on my knees. When the old beggar woman shouted those words\u2014 \u201cYou\u2019re burying your daughter alive!\u201d \u2014my mind refused to process it. My daughter, Sofia, barely 19 years old, had been declared dead 48 hours earlier from a supposed sudden cardiac arrest. I had dressed her in her favorite white dress myself. I had kissed her icy forehead myself at the funeral home.But then, in the midst of that sepulchral silence that enveloped all the guests dressed in black, we heard him.Scratch\u2026 scratch\u2026 thud.It was a dull, rasping, and weak sound. Someone, from deep within that sealed mahogany box, was desperately scratching at the wood. It was the sound of someone running out of oxygen.I sprang up from the floor. The sadness that had consumed me for two days vanished, replaced by an animalistic strength I didn\u2019t know I possessed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOpen the box!\u201d I yelled, my voice hoarse, running toward the coffin hanging from the ropes, inches from the abyss. \u201cOpen the damn box right now!\u201dThe gravediggers, pale as paper, looked at each other, unsure what to do. That\u2019s when Arturo, my husband and Sofia\u2019s stepfather, intervened. But not to help me.You\u2019re crazy, Elena!\u201d Arturo shouted at me, grabbing my shoulders with excessive force, digging his fingers in until it hurt. \u201cIt\u2019s the pain, you\u2019re hallucinating! It\u2019s disrespectful to our little girl\u2019s body! Take her down now!\u201dHer eyes didn\u2019t show pain. They showed panic. Cold sweat beaded on her forehead and her pupils were dilated. In that microsecond, the beggar woman\u2019s words made perfect sense: \u201c\u2026because of your husband.\u201dI didn\u2019t think twice. I kneed Arturo with all my might, broke free from his grip, and snatched the metal shovel from one of the cemetery workers. Fueled by the adrenaline of a desperate mother, I began hammering at the coffin\u2019s gold locks. The family members finally reacted and rushed to help me. Between three men and me, we managed to force open the wooden lid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I can still feel the dampness of the cemetery earth on my knees. When the old beggar woman shouted those words\u2014 \u201cYou\u2019re burying your daughter alive!\u201d \u2014my… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":43837,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"views":85,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43836"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43836\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43838,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43836\/revisions\/43838"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/43837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsinbr.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}