The true cost of tragedy

On Saturday morning at the Hispanic Community Church in Jamaica Plain, the tunnel tragedy was finally about Milena Del Valle.

The politicians were quiet, virtually silent, and that was a good thing.

There was no talk of firings or retribution. There was instead a striking lack of rancor.

There was humility, and there were calls for more humility.

For at least a couple of hours, the roiling political battles were upstaged by the quiet ceremony of a woman going home to Costa Rica, to rest.

The officiant, the Rev. Cesar de Paz, spoke, abetted by translation, of a woman with a constant smile on her face, one who was ``of course, imperfect" but a key part of her close-knit church community. In that instant, it was clear where the void had been in the words, the torrent of words, about the failed Big Dig.

What has been missing since Monday night was any real sense of the victim herself.

In a way, that wasn't too surprising. The Big Dig has been a political powder keg for much of its existence. So the fatal collapse of the tunnel ceiling was destined to instantly become a political story.

But in that nearly full church -- a gathering in which the dignitaries in suits looked out of place -- politics felt irrelevant. There was far more attention paid to the pictures of Del Valle projected on a screen beyond the altar and to her grieving, dignified family.

``We are not here to blame anyone in particular," de Paz said. ``We are here to benefit the people of the city."

Angel Del Valle, Milena's husband, came out to face a bank of microphones after the service. Tellingly, almost all of his comments involved thanking others for their help.

He seemed apologetic that he had not been able during the week to speak to all the people who wanted to speak to him, as if he had nothing else to do last week.

Milena Del Valle worked at Mississippi's, a restaurant in Roxbury. A manager there told a patron that Angel Del Valle walked into the restaurant Tuesday to tell him that his wife would not be returning. Angel said he was sorry. He was worried, he said, that the place would be short-staffed.

That was a far more human moment than you saw in any of the press conferences last week.

State Senator Dianne Wilkerson has been helping the family arrange travel to Costa Rica and raising money for a burial in Del Valle's home country.

She did a good job of placing things in perspective. ``I would like to see this woman get buried in peace, and then we'll talk about what's next," she told the State House News Service. Of Del Valle's family she said, ``They're not thinking about the Turnpike Authority right now, and neither am I."

The battle over America's most expensive public works project isn't about to die down. It is to Matt Amorello's credit that he stayed for every moment of the service, unlike some officials who paid their respects and moved on. That graceful gesture isn't likely to save him, but it was more than some people did.

In truth, though, I was glad to see many of the politicians leave early. After dominating the stage all week, they, for once, were bit players. And after being a bit player in the tragedy of her own death for much of last week, Milena Del Valle finally took center stage.

As the crowd filed out, I was struck by how oblivious the mourners seemed to the swarm of attention surrounding them. They were locked in their own grief. They had no agendas, no changes to call for, no committees to form. For them, this was about one woman, riding in a car, who didn't get to her destination last Monday night.

Saturday's service was vital. Yes, let's fix the Big Dig. Yes, if we must, let's find someone to blame. But this tragedy didn't just happen; it happened to a family. How sad that it took a funeral to remind us of that.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com.