98 people dead.
It’s not possible to measure the emotional impact of the Surfside tragedy, and now, exactly five years after the Champlain Towers South building collapsed, the community and the families are trying to cope with the immense loss.
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A day of commemoration began in the morning darkness with the reading of the 98 names. It’s now a Surfside tradition, a somber reflection of tragedy.
“It is devastating,” said Raquel Oliveira, who lost her son and husband.
None of those who spoke at the remembrance ceremony wanted to be there. They are compelled, though, to honor their loved ones.
“My son was five years old on that day. From today on, I’ll have more time without Lorenzo than with him,” Oliveira said.
Rachel Spiegel’s mom, Judy, died in the disaster. I asked her if she wonders, every day, what her mom is missing.
“Every minute of every day,” Spiegel said, wishing her mom could see her granddaughters. “What I would do for one minute or one more phone call for her to just see the amazing girls that Scarlet and Sloane have become, but I’m left with the heartbreak.”
“For many of us, that day stands still in our hearts and in our minds,” said Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniela Levine Cava.
She paid tribute to the first responders who worked tirelessly in the weeks after the collapse, and said it feels like it just happened yesterday.
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“Even though there was a legal settlement, even though there will be a (permanent) memorial, even though so much has been done to support the families and the community that has been scarred forever, even despite these things, the wounds are still very much present,” Levine Cava said.
Time, speaker after speaker said, does not heal the wounds. How can a father get over losing his daughter and his son-in-law? That’s what Pablo Langesfeld lives with.
“Every day is hard, once you open your eyes, Nikki’s there, it’s very hard, you will never forget that as a parent, the hardest thing that can happen to a parent, losing a child,” Langesfeld said.
The building collapse took University of Chicago student Ilan Naibryf. His parents are still coping with the hole in their lives. Do these ceremonies help them deal with the loss?
“No, to some extent I came, to be honest, to support my wife,” said Carlos Naibryf, Ilan’s father.
But a new grandchild, named after Ilan, has brought a new reason to live.
“So for me, will never be the same, but somehow, he’s still there,” Naibryf said.
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