Meanwhile  Váquez’s family got a big scare. 

 

“My daughter was in her bedroom, right next to mine,” when she heard the intense noise,” Váquez said. “She got up to see me.” 

 

Váquez said her daughter thought she was at home and didn’t know she had gone to church. Her daughter found that  “my bed was on fire.” 

 

Two of her granddaughters were also in the house but were on the first floor. Two fire trucks, about six police patrols, an ambulance and an investigation car responded to the fire, but the rain kept the fire from spreading. 

 

Váquez was crushed when she saw that her room was destroyed because she was there less than two hours before. 

 

“Everything burned!” she said.

 

Her room was black and dark. She would have been in bed, perhaps also charred, had she not gone to the parade to say good-bye to her favorite priest and confessor. 

 

“I started crying to see that God saved me,” she said. 

 

She also recalled that two of her teenager grandchildren were affected in an unrelated explosion. “One died burned and the other one lost her legs,”  she said.

 

Also, while she was in the parade and the strong storm was happening, it brought to mind that “in Michoacán, under a tree, a lightning strike killed my uncle and my cousin. That is why I was worried when I saw monsignor and father ... waving and sheltering from the rain under a tree,” outside the rectory, she said.

 

When she returned home, a police officer helped her to get into her room in the midst of the rubble. She was able to get some basic clothing from her closet, before going to stay with one of her daughters.  

 

Váquez said she had to “do laundry three times to remove the black soot from the clothing because they were completely smoked.”

 

The bedroom fire is not the first time that Váquez has cheated death.

 

That she is a cancer survivor may have helped her because her treatment and recovery make her tire easily. Normally at the time of the Mass and goodbye parade, she would have been in her room. 

 

But when her friend, Dorita, offered to take her to Mass and Msgr. Vallejo’s farewell,  Váquez gladly accepted the invitation. 

 

Váquez is a woman with strong faith and is active in various parish groups at Sacred Heart, such as “the Legion of Mary, the prayer group, the Blessed Sacrament,” she said. 

 

Also, she collaborates in church events, and as a hobby she likes to bake cakes and gelatins. She has been married to her husband Serafin for 48 years and they have five daughters.

 

She said her faith has grown stronger since she had cancer and it has helped her to overcome various family tragedies.  

 

Váquez is convinced that “If I had not gone to Mass and to the parade with Msgr. Vallejo, I would have been dead.”