Dear Lila: Love in the time of a mining disaster

COPIAPO.- When 63-year-old Mario Gomez reached the surface after his underground ordeal at the San Jose mine on Wednesday, he grasped a Chilean flag and dropped to his knees to pray with his yellow hard hat still perched on his head. It was Lilianett Ramirez who pulled him up from the ground and held him in a long and passionate embrace.

Gomez had promised Lilianett if he got through this alive they would finally have their church wedding — after 30 years, four daughters and seven grandchildren. Now that promise will turn into reality.

During the 70 days of the rescue, Lilianet became one of the most respected and talked about women at Camp Hope in the San José mine. The wedding promise came in the first letter Gomez had ever written to Lilianet during their 30-year companionship.

Scrawled on sheets of notebook paper, the letter was placed in a plastic bag and tied to the end of the drill bit that first broke through to their underground shelter, along with another miner’s message announcing: "We're all OK in the refuge, the 33." Read on television by President Sebastian Pinera, Gomez’s "Dear Lila" letter was filled with faith, love and tenderness: “Even if we have to wait months to communicate ... I want to tell everyone that I’m good and we'll surely come out OK," Gomez wrote. "Patience and faith. God is great and the help of my God is going to make it possible to leave this mine alive."

The moving exchange of words between the elderly couple never stopped and despite her exhaustion, Lilianet always attended to all the people that asked her about the messages.

With a sense of modesty, she would say: "Mario writes to me about very romantic things." The story that was told in these last 70 days recollected their initial fears up to the time when they regained hope.

On Wednesday, Gomez and Lilianet closed the chapter with a kiss. “Postman” Gomez was in a good state of health when he emerged from the Phoenix capsule, despite his age and suffering from silicosis, a disease common among elder miners.

“The first thing I did was to kneel down and thank God and the Virgin [Mary],” recounted Lilianet, accompanied by her daughter María José, who stuck a few of the letters on to a picture frame, which was sent by her father while he was trapped.

Lilianet said that after thanking all the rescuers, Gomez had a serious talk with her. “He told me that we were going to get married by the church on November 7, the day of his birthday.” But before that, they will visit the sanctuary of the Virgen de Los Andes, located 13 hours away from San José mine.

Before boarding a helicopter to Copiapó that would take him to a field hospital, Gomez said goodbye to Lila the same way he did in his letters: “I love you.”

– Translated by Mariam Al Serkal/Staff Reporter