Her Name Was Dolores

by Pete Salgado

  As the next hour ticked by, I continued plotting ways to get to Mexico and bring Jen back home. I was thinking of people I could call, digging up any and all connections I could come up with that could help me find her. However, my thoughts and plans were quickly interrupted by the incoming flood of calls from our staff. “What’s going on?” “What should we do?” I honestly had no idea. I was fielding all these calls without knowing what to tell everyone because I wasn’t sure myself what to think or believe.

  Time flew by, 6:00 a.m. became 10:00 a.m. in a heartbeat, and we still didn’t know where Jenni was. In another blink of an eye, I was sitting in her office at her house with all her staff, taking the lead, flying blind, trying to figure out what was going on. Everyone was looking to me to indicate what the next step should be, but I still didn’t have a clue. Meanwhile, the family decided that they would all meet and wait for news together at Jen’s mother’s house, so when the kids left for their grandmother’s place, we moved the staff headquarters from Jen’s home office to my home. We settled in, not knowing that this would become our nerve center up until her memorial ten days later.

  In the meantime, Televisa news reached out to me asking if there was any way we could hop onto a secure server line for them to share their newsfeed with us. That’s when we saw the crash site. In that instant, everything suddenly switched gears. We went from a “we gotta find her” mode to a “we gotta bring her home” mode. I shared the news with the family, but they weren’t willing to let go of their hope. It was all way too hard to come to terms with. So they stepped out of Mrs. Rivera’s home and stood before the press, stating that they were still looking for her and that they would bring her back. They were still in denial, but back home we had already seen the feed. We had seen the shredded pieces of her clothes strewn around the site. She was gone.

  Shaken by the news, I numbed my pain by diving into work mode and figuring out the next steps: identify her remains, bring her home, and plan the memorial. Meanwhile, a media circus ensued. The family kept making statements to the press outside their home, while the brothers were figuring out who would travel to Mexico to bring their sister home. Back at my place, behind the scenes, Julie had taken off back to Jen’s house to grab one of her toothbrushes and some hair from her hairbrushes to give to the family so that they could identify Jen’s body via a DNA sample. It was all so bleak. We then started fielding questions from Jen’s siblings about her body. More than six hundred body parts had been found at the site, and they all needed to be tested to figure out if any of them belonged to Jen. Gustavo and Juan were the ones who flew down to Mexico to help bring this investigation to a close, but we knew more about Jen than they did. They kept calling us with questions.

  “The coroner would like to know if my sister had back surgery,” asked one of the brothers on the phone.

  “No, she never had any back surgery,” replied Julie.

  “Well, the coroner is saying that this body part that they found is scarred and more than likely indicates that this person had surgery in their back.”

  As gruesome as this may all sound, we finally realized that what they were describing was the front part of her torso. She had had a hernia surgery that caused a scar in her abdomen. So we provided all this information in detail and helped confirm that that was indeed Jen’s remains.

  To top it all off, let’s not forget that I had just laid my father to rest the day before. I still hadn’t even had a chance to begin to mourn my dad when suddenly I was dealing with the shock of losing Jen. It was all too much, but as the eldest in my family, always looked upon for strength and protection, I somehow powered through. Not only did I have to be strong for my family, I suddenly also had to be strong for Jen until her accident was resolved and she was laid to rest in peace. I couldn’t afford to break down, so as the news unfolded, I turned my emotions off and kept ploughing through this tragic outcome. Practical leadership skills went on high alert to get whatever was needed done and be as efficient as possible. It was almost like another major concert, another major event for her, but this time around she wasn’t there to guide us. We had thirty-three employees who were heartbroken and lost, so I stepped in and manned the fort.

  Now, as if taking the lead with my family, Jen’s family, and our work family wasn’t enough, we also couldn’t forget about the other four families in Mexico who were also grieving a huge loss and had far less means to retrieve their loved ones’ remains and give them the burial and peace they deserved. We also had her band devastated by the news and stuck in Monterrey, and they too needed to get home. There were so many moving pieces, so much going on at once, that in retrospect, I honestly have no idea how I managed to continue marching forward through some of the darkest days of our lives, but there was absolutely no room for weakness, so I focused on my main mission: we had to bring our girl back home.

  Chapter 13

  The Aftermath

  After Jen’s fatal accident, I was invited to a Rivera family meeting at Mrs. Rivera’s house. Only Jen’s parents and her siblings were present—no wives, no children. I was asked to join them to take Jen’s seat and help them discuss what needed to be done. Jen’s remains had been identified, so we were in the process of bringing her home and had to figure out what the next logical steps would be. I still felt dopey and numb inside, mourning my dad and unable to fully process Jen’s death, so what I heard at this meeting left me somewhat flabbergasted. All I could think about was bringing Jen home and laying her to rest. All they could think about was business.

  They were in the midst of planning a fifty-two-date tour, which they wanted me to pitch as the Rivera Dynasty Tour, and needed to figure out how much money it would bring in as well as the lineup of musicians. Lupillo would obviously be headlining the evening, but they still needed to find someone to close the show. Meanwhile, Jen’s brother, Pastor Pete, chimed in with his own proposal. He said that if we managed to get every one of Jen’s fans to donate just one dollar each, he could open a new church. I sat there and observed them in awe. I really couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I honestly thought I would find a family in mourning, torn and heartbroken by this tragedy, lost and overwhelmed by the circumstances; instead, I found a family trying to figure out how to make their next buck.

  As the meeting continued, Lupillo suddenly turned to me and said, “You know what? I’m jealous of you. I’m jealous of how much time you spent with my sister and how much you know about her, and how much you’ve shared with her.” That was probably the most heartfelt, earnest, and genuine moment in that entire meeting. The pain seeped through Lupillo’s eyes as he spoke. He’d been focusing so much on his career and establishing himself that he didn’t have a chance to share as many quality moments with his sister, even less so given their sibling rivalry, so I got it. They’d finally reconciled, and now she was gone and he couldn’t take back time or ask for a re-do. It was such a human sentiment, one of the few ones I experienced with the family. Maybe the rest of the family felt the same way, but at that meeting, all they managed to do was talk about themselves.

  Meanwhile, Gabo had written to Rosie because he wanted to be with all of us, and in the e-mail, he said:

  Rosie: I haven’t been able to sleep lately, and I looked for your e-mail to write you and say:

  I know the very painful and tumultuous times you must be experiencing!!

  I know that all of you, like me, are people of FAITH, and that’s what keeps us standing!!

  And that all of you, like me, are waiting for a miracle. And if that weren’t to happen, to also thank God for the time He allowed us to be with her on Earth.

  I know you were the person she loved the most on Earth, aside from her children, but you were the most special person to her, and that should make you feel great and proud of your wonderful sister.

  Gabo also mentioned to Rosie that he wanted to be there for them during this difficult and painful moment. She replied thanking him for giving Jenni so much love and for gi
ving them space. She said she’d let him know when she could see them. But that day never came. She never called.

  Back at the family meeting, I finally gathered myself and spoke up, giving it to them as straight as I always did. First I looked at Pete. “Pastor Pete, where’s your faith? Is your faith not in God or is it in Jen’s fans? Why, at this time, would you challenge that? Shouldn’t that be a challenge to God and your faith, who shall provide?” He sat back and said nothing. Then I directed myself to the entire family, “This isn’t the time to be announcing a national tour. Yeah, I’ll look into it. But ultimately, what are we doing about Jen?” Where was their sense of mourning? Didn’t they want to at least celebrate her life and legacy? I didn’t understand how they could be so focused on looking for ways on how to profit from such a tragedy, so soon after it had happened. It really hurt and baffled me, but I was no longer dealing with Jen with the heart of gold. Now it was just her family, and they had other plans in mind for the future. Instead of thinking about what Jen might have wanted, all they could focus on was their own needs. The meeting was finally adjourned, but this would be the first of a long list of situations that would leave me rattled, distressed, and speechless.

  Case in point: the arrival of Jen’s remains. When the private jet carrying Jen’s remains finally landed in Long Beach, California, during what should’ve been a somber moment, Gustavo—who’d gone to Mexico with Juan—couldn’t stop posting comments on social media about all the helicopters and cameras surrounding their arrival. He was like a kid in a candy story with all that attention, smiling as they interviewed him. How can you smile? Your sister’s body parts are in the plane behind you, and you’re smiling? I couldn’t stop shaking my head.

  Then came the memorial service on December 19, 2012, another crushing day. I not only attended as one of the two nonfamily members who were asked to stand up and eulogize her, I had also been called up to orchestrate the event, and had been working on it with our team from my home headquarters after receiving confirmation that she had been in that fatal plane crash. Ever since her death, I had switched into automatic pilot, coordinating all the details of everything that would lead to Jen’s last day on a stage and her final resting place.

  After ten arduous and harrowing days, the time had come to memorialize Jen. That Wednesday, as my wife and I pulled up to the Gibson Amphitheater, I cast my eyes to the sky and noticed helicopters hovering above, anxiously awaiting Jen’s last public appearance. We were running late, and I was stressed out, so I looked back down, opened the door, and climbed out of the car, trying to stay focused on the event ahead, when suddenly my wife turned to me and said quietly, “Look, she waited for you.” I glanced in the direction she pointed with her head and saw the hearse. The back door was open and the funeral home employees were pulling Jen’s casket out of the vehicle. It suddenly felt as if we were arriving together for one of her shows, walking into the venue as we’d done so many other times throughout the last ten years, except this time instead of exchanging a glance while she walked ahead of me, hearing her crack a joke or pray before her performance, instead of seeing her cascading hair and those big brown eyes filled with sadness and joy, what lay ahead of me was a casket rolling up the theater ramp with her remains. Then my wife grabbed my arm and whispered, “She waited for you, for this moment.” Moved to the core, I continued walking behind Jen, and together we entered the backstage area one last time, Jen first and me following, as we had always done before. I was immersed in this extraordinary God-given moment when I was quickly jolted back to reality by a voice yelling out, “Nobody touches the casket!”

  The family had hired outside security to guard her casket and make sure no one lay a hand on it, but I would be damned if I wasn’t going to have one last moment with my sister by choice and bid her farewell in peace. I went up to the team, asked to have a few minutes, and thankfully, rather than arguing with me, they respectfully walked away and gave me a little privacy. Looking down at that coffin and knowing Jen was inside, rather than by my side laughing, arguing, chatting, was one of the toughest moments of my life. It was hard to come to terms with such finality.

  After I said my one-on-one good-bye, I walked with heavy steps toward the Rivera family, my heart breaking over this loss, hoping to commiserate with them and find some form of comfort in the sorrow we all shared that day. However, to my utter dismay, when I reached the group, instead of finding solace, I found a bunch of women complaining about not having enough people to do their hair and makeup, as if they were prepping for a show. I was stunned. My wife noticed how disturbed I was by the entire scene, so she consoled me, knowing my distraught silence all too well. The rest of the day was somewhat of a blur, with bits and pieces haunting me to this day as grief-laden flashbacks.

  I clearly remember Jen’s brother, Juan, walking over to me, shaking my hand, and saying, “Thank you for all that you’ve done for my sister and for taking care of her.” I could hardly muster a response. I also remember Martha Ledezma, her longtime product manager at Fonovisa, approaching me that day and saying, “Jenni fulfilled her promise. We were all together on my birthday. I just wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.” Jen had been planning a birthday party for Martha on December 19, but instead of celebrating Martha’s day, we were mourning the loss of our dear friend Jen.

  On the flipside, I also remember Jen’s banda showing up from Mexico. Having played with her at every show for the past few years and having shared so many experiences on the road together, they came to mourn this tremendous loss as her work brothers. But instead of having the chance to sit back and lean on one another for support during this sad and painful time, the Rivera family suddenly asked them to hit the stage and play. I couldn’t believe my ears. These guys had gone to mourn their music sister, they weren’t emotionally ready to play; they were attending as guests, not performers, they didn’t even have their banda outfits. And that’s why the Riveras had invited them: to play and accompany the other artists. So now, suddenly, Julie was rushing around trying to round up some borrowed banda uniforms for them to put on and go out there and perform with Jen’s casket. What was the family thinking?

  They weren’t thinking. They were just going through the moves as if this were any other one of Jen’s productions. Maybe it was their way of coping, I don’t know; I just can ascertain that it rubbed many of us the wrong way. As I reviewed the speech I had written for the ceremony, I was hit with another shocking request: there should be no crying while each speech is read on stage because this was supposed to be a celebration. What the hell? How could I not cry for what we had just lost only ten days earlier? I get the whole celebrating her life thing, but we should’ve also been able to openly mourn what we and the world had tragically lost at the memorial service. Needless to say, when I finally took the stage, I was so focused on trying not to cry I wasn’t even able to get through my eulogy. Tears welled up in my eyes and I couldn’t see or say the words. I mustered a few phrases through the overwhelming pain and emotion, and stepped down. It was all just too much. Her fans were sobbing, devastated; her kids couldn’t keep it together on stage either. It was just an emotional mess, and I think trying to hold back such a natural emotion as sadness only made it worse for us all. Now was not the time to celebrate; we first needed to mourn. The celebration should’ve been left for later, one that would help perpetuate her legacy in the years to come, but that was eventually also sidetracked.

  As I left the podium, tears streaming down my face, I just couldn’t return to my seat in the audience. Breaking down publicly was just too hard for me to handle, so I headed backstage followed by my wife, my rock, always by my side supporting me through thick and thin. As I sat down and tried to pull myself together, I noticed Joan Sebastián, the renowned Mexican singer and one of Jen’s musical inspirations, approaching us. He quietly sat down next to me, took his hat off, held my knee, and said, “I understand. I understand you.” That simple phrase filled with love and comfort will
forever be etched in my heart.

  Suddenly, amid all the mayhem, I began to realize that Jen’s beloved work family was now the forgotten family. There was a coldness in the way we were all treated that truly pierced my heart and really drove in the reason why she cherished her team as if we were family. Yes, we got paid for our work, but we always went above and beyond, because we loved her. She’d come over to my place for a home-cooked meal whenever she needed comfort. It was a place where she could let her guard down and just be, where she could cry and be taken care of without worrying about keeping it together for everyone else. We were all there for her, and she knew it. That’s why the final hit we took would’ve been unfathomable to Jen.

  Her burial was scheduled for New Year’s Eve, but the Riveras had explained that they just wanted family present, so we weren’t invited to attend. We would’ve loved to be there, but we understood and respected the reasoning behind this decision. Jen had given so much of her life to the public that it only made sense for this last moment to be a private one, especially for her adored children. We got it. It was definitely the right thing to do, but that’s not how it went down. We later found out that aside from family, there were also banda and norteño groups playing, and they’d been allowed to bring their wives. So these complete strangers were able to spend those last moments with Jen while her team, her work family, the people who had seen her through endless ups and downs, had to sit this one out. When we heard of this, we were all so stupefied and aggrieved. It was a mind-boggling and relentless blow, and it went against every fiber of Jen’s being.