Dimarie Rodriguez

At 13, he started cleaning bathrooms in resorts. Afterwards he went to McDonald’s. With a lady named Yvonne. A friend who made him manager to everyone. It was a group. She was his boss. And she made him manager. That night at Pulse it was a group of 12 friends celebrating a birthday. If I went to bed and I don’t know where he is, but I always knew where he was because he always called me, I would text him “Night, Night”. And he would text back, “Night, night, I love you. (te amo)”. And I would text back, “Me more.” Always it was like that. Or if he went to sleep first, and I hadn’t answered, he would text me “Night, Night” and I would send, “I love you.” But that night, there was no “Night, Night”, because I knew he was at the club. I had sent mine. And he sent me “I love you.” But he didn’t send his “Night, Night” because he was out. When I got up that night and didn’t see him in bed and I texted him, I didn’t see his “Night, Night.” Obviously he hadn’t come. I went back to bed and got up at 4:00 am. I got up and got dressed and I went to work very early. It was like 4:30 am. He hasn’t gotten home. And that was the first time that had happened. * But because it was all the friends, partying I just thought they were partying. I work at a car rental. I’m in charge of 50 drivers. One of them, a young one, 22 years old, he told me, “There was a shooting in downtown Orlando.” I said “Ugh just like Puerto Rico.” I go on working. I go to get another car ready and every time I go to get another car, he says “Hey! There are up to 10 dead!” “20, 25,” because he’s reading the news off his phone. And I’m like, when it gets up to 25, I say, “Hey, but where is that?” “Pulse” Oh my God. My son was there. He invited me. And I froze up. WAIT. I go, I call Simone’s mother, and ask “Hey have the boys arrived?” She says “No not a single one has arrived”. I call my son’s roommate, “Go to his room and look at his bed” The bed was the same as it was when I saw it at 2:00 am., 3:00 am. I got scared. This is serious. I call a girlfriend, “Look at the media, police, the hospitals, the jails, please look for him. I don’t know where he is.” And when she calls me back she says, “Listen, leave there. (sniffles) Come look for your son.” She says, “Listen, this is serious.” Everything is closed. I go to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, I found Peter’s mother. She’s crying, she said “Please don’t tell me your son was at the club too?” She’s my school friend from Puerto Rico she was my sister in law for 7 years, she was my brother’s wife. She says, “Don’t tell me your son was there.” And I said, “Yes, I believe he was” She says, “No, no, no. My son won’t turn up” And then the torturous waiting started. You also have to remember that everything was in English. And I had a friend that sort of understood and I was taking cues from the people around me, by their reactions, I tried to understand what was happening. But in my heart I felt I would find him there, on the floor. And they sent us home until they could upgrade the list. When I went on, Monday they called came to my house they gave me the news. They sat us down, like this, and they told me, “We found that he was not alive, because we found his ID. We found him face down.” He took a piece of me. Where is he? Because you know all.” And I saw, I saw in my mind, I saw him lying face down. I saw, when I say to God, and my mind showed me my son face down. Like when you’re a little kid walking and you fall down face first. So then I said “Wow, I understand where he is, he is lying face down.” Because in my mind I saw it. So then everyone was looking for the lists in the hospitals for the living. I said, “No. I want to look for the list of those in there.”