Fund to help family as 9-year-old shooting victim recovers

Jacqueline Funez was struck by a stray bullet. Jacqueline Funez was struck by a stray bullet. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez, The Chronicle Image 1 of / 3 Caption Close Fund to help family as 9-year-old shooting victim recovers 1 / 3 Back to Gallery

Silvia Funez Lopez left Guatemala nine years ago in search of a better life for her unborn child.

On the evening of May 16, her daughter, Jacqueline Funez, was struck by a stray bullet from a drive-by shooting as she played with her brother in the front yard of the family's home on 66th Avenue in Oakland. She was two days shy of her 9th birthday.

The bullet struck Jacqueline in the neck and severed an artery. Her mother credits the Oakland police and firefighters with saving her daughter's life.

But the shooting left her paralyzed and unable to speak. She has been in the intensive care unit at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital Oakland since. Last week, doctors observed some feeling returning to her right arm and some sensation in her leg, her mother said, through an interpreter. They are guarded but optimistic that it's a positive sign.

On the day her daughter was shot, Lopez was inside doing chores when her 7-year-old son, Jonathan, ran inside crying - and pointing to a burn on the edge of his hand.

When Jonathan heard gunfire down the street, and getting louder, he grabbed his sister and pulled her to the ground with him as he'd been taught in school. He wrapped his arm around her head and was wounded by the same bullet that nearly took her life.

By that time, Lopez's boyfriend had run to the front yard and found Jacqueline lying on the ground in a pool of blood.

As Lopez arrived, and scooped up her daughter in her arms, the little girl said to her, "Mama, don't leave me, don't leave me," over and over, her mother recalled. And with her eyes gazing upward, she told her mother not to cry.

Summoning strength

Standing barely 5 feet tall with hair down to her waist, Lopez isn't much bigger than her daughter, but her diminutive physique is deceiving: She has summoned more courage and strength than most people muster in a lifetime in order to be strong for her daughter.

In the days after the shooting, Lopez was inconsolable. She cried at the hospital. She cried at home.

But her daughter's indomitable spirit - coupled with Lopez's religious faith - has been a source of inner strength.

"I need to be strong for my daughter," she said. "God has given me the strength. I have a 7-year-old son to be strong for as well as my daughter."

Since the shooting, Lopez has held a constant vigil at her daughter's bedside. She arrives at 9 a.m. and leaves around 10 p.m., said Doreen Moreno, a spokeswoman at Children's. Jonathan often accompanies her but cannot bring himself to go into his sister's hospital room. He is also being provided with services to address a trauma he will carry for life.

But Lopez's dedication to her daughter has come at a cost.

Her employers were aware of what happened but offered little condolence and even less human sympathy, said Lopez, who worked as a janitor cleaning buildings after business hours.

Instead of offering help or time off, they let her go. A week or so later, they rescinded the termination if she would return to work, but she couldn't do it.

Struggling to speak

For the first three weeks, Jacqueline breathed through a respirator until it was replaced by a tracheal tube. She still struggles for the breath to speak, but Lopez understands everything her daughter is trying to say like only a mother can.

"Mom, I want to walk," Jacqueline told her mother recently, in her whispered voice. "Push me so I can try."

There is no timetable or guarantees for Jacqueline's recovery, Moreno said. "She could be here for a few more weeks or for the next year."

Jacqueline's former second-grade teacher, Liz Torres, has raised $16,000 toward her goal of $20,000 to help the family, and a separate account at Chase Bank has been established to help defray the family's medical costs and household bills. Friends have donated what little they could offer.

In 17 years on this job, I've seen Bay Area residents step up and exhibit jaw-dropping generosity and kindness to good people in bad situations.

One man purchased a new Harley-Davidson motorcycle for a wounded Union City Iraq War veteran who had his stolen the day he got it out of storage. Another person opened his pockets to help Akintunde Ahmad, a brilliant Oakland high school student, achieve his dream of attending an Ivy League school, and hundreds of people pitched in to help the cook and janitor who provided for patients left behind at an elder-care center in Castro Valley last year.

The quiet grace and dignity of Silvia Funez Lopez - a woman whose only possessions are her family and faith - is an inspiration to anyone pushing against seemingly insurmountable odds.

This article has been revised since it appeared in print editions.