Como nossos pais

What fears have you overcome and how?

This was the strangest coincidence—or synchronicity—that has ever happened to me. It all revolved around the number 19. I remember it vividly, it marked me profoundly, and I hope you’ll see why. Every time I hear the song Como nossos pais by Elis Regina, I relive it. I’m sure Jung himself would’ve been intrigued.

The party that changed everything

It was my birthday, I was just turning eight years old that year. My mom was running some errands. She was probably busy buying the ingredients to bake a cake and the decorations for a party. My dad had his birthday just the day after mine, so we celebrated together. If memory serves, she was driving our Volkswagen Beetle. It was the old model, which in Brazil we called Fusca, or affectionately, Fusquinha.

January 19th

“Hey, look!” she said to me excited, pointing to the street sign in front of us, “this is Avenida Dezenove de Janeiro. That’s today—and it’s your birthday too!” The name of the avenue was literally January 19th, the day I was born. That coincidence alone awakened a quiet sense of wonder in me. But it wasn’t over.

1982

To save money—and avoid a ticket—she parked in a free lot behind the Vila Formosa Cemetery, one of the largest in São Paulo. While she was steering in that direction, she went pale and gave a little gasp. Something was playing in the radio, and I also started paying attention.

12:19 p.m.

“Today, January 19, 1982, at 12:19 p.m., we interrupt our programming,” the broadcaster announced, his voice heavy. “We have the unfortunate news that Elis Regina has passed away, the greatest voice of the Brazilian Popular Music.” That was something totally unexpected.

“We lost Elis Regina”

Just like that, we had gone from birthday chatter to silence in a moment. Parked behind a cemetery, the joy of celebration gave way to something heavier. I remember watching my mother as she absorbed the news—something shifted in her. I didn’t know much about Elis Regina then; I was just a child. But I understood, instinctively, that something important had been lost.

Como nossos pais

I think that was my first real encounter with death, and it instilled a fear within me—not the cartoon kind, but the kind that arrives without warning and sits beside you in silence. The kind that makes you feel, for the first time, that life is fragile, and endings are real.

Now, looking back, I see how that moment echoed far beyond a single day. A voice silenced at 36, a child learning what death feels like, a mother suddenly reflective, a number repeating itself like a symbol waiting to be understood.

And just like the song says—ainda somos os mesmos, e vivemos como nossos pais—maybe what unsettled me most was the shared fear. This fear wasn’t mine alone. It was also my mom’s, it was passed down, softly spoken through glances and songs, through silence in a parked car, on the nineteenth of January.