They ‘haven’t even begun to live’: Miami mourns death of 2 children in condo collapse

Lucia Guara may have been just a kid, but she wasn’t too young to want to make the world a better place.

Last fall, she asked her dad, Marcus Guara, to mail a letter for her. It was addressed to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, and it was overflowing with cash she had saved, the largess of birthday gifts and a particularly generous Tooth Fairy.

Why was she sending this bounty to St. Jude, which treats childhood cancers and pediatric diseases? Because “they need it more than I do.”

The story, which Lucia’s proud father posted on his Facebook page, motivated him to create a fundraiser of his own for the hospital.

What Lucia’s unselfish act might have inspired in the future, we can’t know.

The Guara family — Marcus, 52; Lucia, 10; mother Anaely Rodriguez, 42; and Emma, 4 — died in the collapse of the Champlain Towers South condominium, which fell in a crushing rumble of concrete and steel last week. Marcus Guara was pulled from the remains on Saturday, while the rest of his family was recovered Wednesday. They lived on the eighth floor.

There is no scale with which to measure the depths of the tragedy in Surfside, and trying to weigh the relative values of so many distinct and precious lives is pointless. But in terms of hope and promise, the loss of the Guara family hits hard, in Miami and around the rest of the world.

There will be other casualties of this disaster, and some of them will be children (Jonah Handler, 15, was pulled from the wreckage alive last week.) But the younger Guaras are the first young children whose bodies have been found, and they are a painful and vivid reminder of the unbearable nature of this catastrophe.

“Everyone is beside themselves feeling tremendous sadness for these families who were lost,” said Father Juan Sosa at St. Joseph’s Catholic Church in Miami Beach, where the Guaras were members. “When you talk about the deaths of the senior citizens, they have lived their lives, and we thank God for their lives and their contributions to the world. But children haven’t even begun to live their lives. The girls each had their whole life ahead of them.”

The church, three blocks from Champlain Towers, was a part of the Guaras’ lives. Lucia had her first communion there in 2019; Emma was baptized on Sept. 10, 2016.

The girls also loved the beach they lived on, posing for photos that found their way to their father’s social media page. Marcus, a graduate of Christopher Columbus High School and captain of the rowing team at the University of Miami, taught his girls how to throw up the “U” sign, as any good Hurricane fan would.

Guara’s cousin Peter Milián said that siblings Manuel Guara and Annette Guara-Hurst were devastated by the news about their brother, who worked as a regional sales manager for New York-based bed and bath textile company Kassatex.

“He was a great brother, uncle, cousin, son, and loved his daughters passionately,” Milián said. “He loved life.”

His former teammates on the UM rowing team paid tribute to Guara on miamihurricanes.com.

“The UM crew team was a big family then and I have always considered Marc like the big brother I never had,” posted Deb Sullivan, class of 1992.

Anaely Rodriguez attended Miami Dade College and worked there in the payroll department from 2013-14. “She was a good co-worker,” said her colleague Ronald Rodriguez. “Fun, had an infectious smile and laugh and definitely had the spirit of a fighter.”

In 2014, she took a job at Florida International University, working in graduate programs student services for the School of Journalism and Mass Communication and later as a career development analyst at the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management.

While she was working at FIU, she also earned a bachelor’s degree in business in 2019.

“She was the archetypal Cuban woman who wanted to get ahead, who wanted an education, who wanted to be a professional, and at the same time she had two children and a very loving husband,” said Allan Richards, who was associate dean of the journalism school when Rodriguez worked there (he’s now an associate professor). “To me she represented the strong Cuban woman who handled work, her education and her family.”

At a press conference Wednesday, a visibly moved Miami-Dade Mayor Daniella Levine Cava echoed the feelings of everyone who has learned the fate of the family seen smiling from photographs, wearing sunglasses, carefree and happy.

“The loss of our children is too great to bear,” she said. “Our community, our nation and the world, we are all mourning with these families.”

Miami Herald staff writer Joan Chrissos contributed to this story.

Here are the names and stories of the missing and dead in Surfside condo collapse