Parallels- Surviving the Legacy of Pain

By Vargas Eileen

Told through the eyes of a girl struggling with the gut-wrenching loss of her mother while forced to live in the unbalanced world of her father as revealed through graphic details and anecdotes. On the surface, this girl’s early life was mundane: a well-manicured house, a privileged life, a group of daughters whose father was a doctor and who outwardly displayed a healthy lifestyle.

But the details behind that surface tell her story. It includes a struggle in which, just like soldiers fighting an unseen enemy, she battled the invisible effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Codependency, and Depression. And it includes survival—the immeasurable, concentrated effort to finally rid herself and her sisters of the crushing albatross of pain.

This story takes the reader on the harrowing journey of exposing the egregious, despicable trauma created by those people who fail to protect women and girls from the corrosive behavior that causes irreparable, long-lasting damage.

The author gives the reader tools to use to release themselves from a life of failure, hopelessness, impossibility, and despair to a new found freedom of realizing themselves as truly worthy, cherished, and freed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vargas Eileen
• Release date: Jul 9, 2019
• ISBN: 9781630391201

Vargas Eileen

Eileen Vargas, one of six daughters of a surgeon father and nurse mother, grew up in Hialeah, Florida. After her parents' divorce, she attended a series of parochial schools. Moving frequently throughout her adolescence, she graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School. Vargas later graduated from the University of Miami with a Bachelor's degree in Journalism/Broadcast Media. Her subsequent career path took her, quite literally, all over the world. In her early career as a real estate broker, Vargas had the opportunity to witness the transformation of South Florida into a world-class living and business environment. Later pursuing a role as an educator in Sarasota County, Florida, she taught high school Honors English and English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL), with an endorsement as a Reading Specialist. She is also a graduate of the Leadership Institute near Washington, D.C. Her work has also taken her overseas. After living and operating her business in Portugal for almost eight years, Vargas moved to Nansha, China (Guangdong Province). There, she worked as a support for classroom teachers at a newly opened high school. Later, she was tapped to teach International Baccalaureate (IB) English at a high school in the Kingdom of Bahrain. She has spoken to audiences in the United States and internationally about family issues. Vargas's travels have allowed her to visit the continents of North America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America. Her passion for adventurous journey has taken her to more than 42 countries, including extensive travel throughout the United States. She loves meeting people, dancing, foreign films, cooking, animals, scuba diving, working out, and plainly loves learning about all things. In addition to writing, Eileen works with her husband, Robert "Bobby" Heisey as a financial coach with Primerica. They enjoy life in Jensen Beach, Florida with their rescue Yorkshire Terrier, Layla.

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Parallels-Front-cover.jpgBook title: Parallels

surviving the legacy of pain

Eileen Vargas

Parallels – surviving the legacy of pain

Copyright © 2019 by Eileen Vargas

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.

First published in 2019 by Eileen Vargas

ISBN: 978-1-63039-118-8 (Paperback USA)

ISBN: 978-1-63039-120-1 (eBook)

Credits and permissions are listed in the chapters and are considered a continuation of the copyright page.

Unless otherwise noted, the Bible Quotations contained in this book are from the New International Version copyright Zondervan Publishing House

Editing by Kristin Oganowski

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Book & Cover design by Mario Marić

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Author photo for biography and back cover - Photography by Patricia

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Printed and bound in the United States of America on FSC certified paper

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To schedule EILEEN VARGAS for a keynote or

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To Mommy

When you died, I never got over it. I just found a way of surviving each day without you. Some losses don’t hurt for a while…they hurt for a lifetime.

To my husband, Bobby, whose unceasing encouragement and heartfelt love gently motivated me to bring this book to life.

To my Children - Boneco Bobo, Tequila, and Layla

Introduction

Unfinished Business

This Man We Called Daddy

A New Dawn for An Old Country

Fairytales into Nightmares

Grasping at the Wrong Men

Abandonment

Spiraling Downward

Child Abuse

Trampled!

Chasing the Demons

School Daze

Laundry Room

Where Does A Young Girl Look for Help?

Just One of The Girls-Jo

Is It Really Reality?

The Value of Women?

Storm Session

A Letter of Ruin

Warping Innocence

Which Girl Are You?

My Mother, My Comfort

Male Privilege

When They’re All Gone

A New Song in My Mouth

Does Destiny Lead to Fate? Or Is Fate Its Own Woman?

Truth Moments

Forgiveness

Thoughts About My Journey

Healing Process

Epilogue

Is it better to tell a story with broad-brushed, vague ? Or is it better to give all the graphic details, all the anecdotes, all the evidence?

Broad-brushed, vague descriptions can conceal important details. So, in this story, I have chosen to reveal the details.

On the surface, my early life was pretty mundane: a well-manicured house, a privileged life, a group of whose father was a doctor and who outwardly displayed a healthy lifestyle. But the details behind that surface tell my story.

My story includes a mother whose absence led to the downfall and collapse of my family, just at a time when I so desperately needed her to shape, guide, console, and protect me.

It includes a struggle in which, just like soldiers fighting an unseen enemy, I battled the invisible effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Codependency, and Depression.

And it includes survival—the immeasurable, concentrated effort to finally rid myself and my sisters of the crushing albatross of pain.

I have chosen not to use several of my sisters’ names, as they have wanted to remain anonymous. But their names are not the details that matter most here. It’s our story that matters.

This story is for women and young girls first. It is also for the men that touch their lives. My hope is that others can also be bravely diligent in exposing the egregious, trauma created by those people who fail to protect women and girls from the corrosive behavior that causes irreparable, long- damage.

Chapter 1: Unfinished BusinessChapter 1 photos

The sweet melody of Ave Maria ¹ bounded off the cavernous walls of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Hialeah, Florida, that October day. My sisters and I arrived at the church together. We all hugged as we entered our pews: all of us, that is, except for Annette, the sister who had cut the rest of us out of her life thirty-five years before.

Even at our father’s funeral, her distance was to be expected.

My eyes had a hazy vision after much crying the week before. The burial had been postponed by Annette, who, to my other sisters and me, was executor of my father’s estate. Why he had made this decision, I did not know. My father was a secretive man. Few people penetrated past the veneer that he had crafted over his eighty-eight years of living.

And yet I still craved his attention, his approval, even after his death. The morning of the funeral, I had dressed in a fluid black skirt with a matching cover-up, accented with a velvet lace tank top. I wanted to impress my father one last time. I yearned to hear his voice telling me how ever-so-cool my style choices were.

But I never would hear those words from him again. All I had were my own words.

Each of us girls had the opportunity to eulogize our father. Some of my sisters chose to give their own eulogies. Others asked me to speak on their behalf.

As I worked to craft the words I spoke on that day, I had plenty to think about. My mind replayed the years that I had lived in Sarasota, trying to foster a reasonable adult-child with my father. I thought about my recent calls to hospice, when the cancer that had metastasized to his bones was threatening to take his life.

I thought about how my father never made things right for us. And I had no idea how this fact would continue to rear its head and reverberate in the most destructive manner over the coming months.

Does one always say the truth about someone’s life when that life is not lived well? Probably not. Did I speak the truth about our father’s life on the day of his funeral? Definitely not. I wanted to save face for him.

These were the words that I spoke:

"Our Dad’s life was like the tapestry of bursting colors: shiny golds, mossy browns, fern and teal greens, brilliant crimson reds, azure and royal blues, burnished oranges, aurora borealis whites.

Sometimes words take a little longer to weave together; yet they blend well forming a symphonic pattern.

Everlasting visions—the memories that touch me when I least expect them—the Florida Keys, that little girl sitting on her Daddy’s lap, her head turned, eyes looking to the end of the blue ocean, these early seaside days ignited my love of the propelling me to indulge in boating, scuba diving, choosing a walk on the beach, Dad capturing the sisters’ Easter dress-up with his black Kodak camera, his beaming pride on my long-awaited day from my alma mater, a series of travel trips—St. Thomas, Colombia, Israel—that kindled my taste for world travel beginning with my first cruise to Haiti, showing me the world beyond Miami, leading me to the joy of living overseas, a smile from him for no reason, meals we shared, Saturday or Sunday or both–movies at the foreign film theatre—my natural popcorn, his kettle corn, weekend farmers’ market shopping, an afternoon drive to the beach with the convertible top down, matching caps on our heads, us at polar ends of an issue, each holding our ground for the final word, watching young talking heads opine about the economy, Young people can’t know what it was like in the Depression. I’d change the channel, Oh look Dad, this talking head is much older. He must know what he is talking about.

A touch of his hand on my shoulder, the stories shared—coming to this country as a young child with his mother, the struggles of a young man from his country and family, graduating top of his class—Vanderbilt University and National University of Mexico, working by lantern to sew up gunshot wounds in small backwater Mexican towns during his rural service, visiting families in Colombian shanty huts, inoculating crying babies who had a slim chance of living past three years of life. His resourcefulness of convincing huge companies to part with taken-for- samples, the love that keeps him close to my heart forever: lessons learned. He dreamed of being a doctor, not letting anything stop him. Dad, what was your Plan B if you couldn’t be a doctor? There was no other choice, no Plan B –Never. A Surgeon miracle worker, life saver, remembered by grateful patients and families, cries of the heart and soul woven throughout. A tapestry of rich hues to feel and see, yet seemingly impossible to hold.

A tapestry of words tracing a lifetime of one man given six daughters.

Mossy browns accented with patterns of golden words from ANNETTE:

My father was a very proud and passionate man of great dignity. He loved all types of animals. He loved our dog, Gibby, and adored his companion, Negra, who was by his side until the end.

He tried so hard to make sure my children had a nice time when they were with him. He loved them—dearly—always instilling in them how important an education is as a tool for opening doors for oneself in life.

For years, I would always bring him his favorite Friday’s special Pigs Feet from Ayestaran Restaurant in Miami. He would tell me, not too many potatoes. Several servings would last him for one week, a simple pleasure he looked forward to—eating—appreciating more as time moved forward.

Over the years, I have way too many happy memories and shared jokes with my father; I will cherish them always. I am blessed that he was my father. I will miss him dearly. I love you always, Daddy. May God bless you.

Shocks of teal green swathed with azure blue, outlined by the words of JOANNE Jo, her own child-person yet in the shadow of her father:

Daddy, Daddy, there’s a fish in the sand flats.

He introduced me to the natural beauty and water of Florida, there’s something around every corner…looking for blue crabs…different parks…oh, that unending loveliness.

The excitement I felt when I saw a school of dolphins, a cacophony of prismatic greens, yellows, blues, shiny silver, the colors of a rainbow.

For as a little girl, he made me wonder what’s below these waters: What is my Daddy trying to show me? He encouraged me to take scuba diving classes. What else can I see? Where else can I glimpse into depths teeming with lights and life? Fishing. The ocean waters. Let’s see if this lure will catch something…too much weight…let’s make it look natural!

For as a little girl, the magnificent greens, yellows, blues, a wonderland. For as a little girl, that’s something I’ve never forgotten. I have never those words.

I’ve waited my entire life for this, he would say, and I would like to repeat those words: I’ve waited my entire life, too. I’ll catch a magnificent fish, and I will thank him. One day, that caught fish will be so big, so beautiful, and I’ll release him, let him go on and swim and live forever.

My Dad allowed me to catch him. There’s a certain amount of respect for a large fish. Yes, maybe one day I, too, will say, I waited my entire life. It doesn’t matter how much I say. Today, that’s what I remember: he showed me.

Turning my head away—leaning over the edge of the boat—it’s almost as if I can see my : that little girl, although I was seasick, as a little girl I stole another moment to look. Behind me I heard his shouts, Get rods! For as a little girl, I leaned over and saw those colors.

The blinding aurora borealis, searing white

words.

He was a man of many passions, lovingly growing his fruit trees and plants, creating a bit of an oasis in a city by the seashore. Travel was never far from his mind, visiting such faraway places: through the pyramids of Luxor, Egypt, walking the Via Dolorosa of Jerusalem, Israel, cruising the waterways of Alaska, walking the Great Wall of China, touching the ruins of Machu Picchu, Peru, watching the hippos and lions drinking water outside his room from a camp in Kenya, fascinated by the bright lights of Bangkok, Thailand, holding a kangaroo joey in Sydney, Australia, listening to the waves slap the shores of a beach on the island nation of Tahiti or tasting shark fin soup for the first time and perhaps the last in Tokyo, Japan, and yet, always returning to savor his country, Colombia, his Tierra Querida—his beloved country.

Woven strands of brilliant crimson red words from LUCILLE Lucy:

Hi, Dad. They told me you smiled the widest grin. Who did you see? It sure must be such a wonderful feeling now to be able to see Mommy, , and Abuelito reaching to you with love.

I’m so glad to have whispered in your ear before you left me. It’s okay, Dad, for you to leave, and more so that your soul will be at peace. Dad, when you see Mommy, you’ll know you can finally share the love that was missing. Bye, Dad.

Shiny golds, mossy browns, fern and teal greens, brilliant crimson reds, azure and royal blues, burnished oranges, aurora borealis whites. Love and important relationships are eternal. He wanted his six daughters with him—finally. I know he had a love in his heart for each one of us—he told me so again a few days before he laid down for his next sojourn.

Although we watched in sorrow, we give thanks especially to his doctors and hospice, and all those who carried him through this dark procession—the coarse fibers of the needle of cancer—a long, black streak against the many colors of his life.

Now, this tapestry’s unraveling, HE, THE LORD, comes to take you back, Dad.

Yes, he was a father, our father, now he can be childlike resting in the Lord’s comfort.

Daddy, save a place for each of us in our next house, together with our beautiful mother, sharing eternal happiness that we believe will never cease.

Au Revoir, Ate’ Breve’, Hasta Luego, See you in a little while.

Yes, we were always searching for love from our father. All we wanted was to be loved. But that love was never to be acknowledged or reciprocated without conditions from him.

The sound of Kathy Troccoli’s Goodbye for Now2 us as we walked out of the church. We were greeted by the blinding sunlight as all five of us slid into the passenger compartment of the hired limousine. As we began the twenty-minute ride to Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Cemetery in western Dade County, I reached for Annette’s hand as a gesture of faith that she would be proper on all counts as the executor of our father’s estate. She held my hand firmly. Perhaps she could feel my petitioning strength on behalf of her other sisters. Perhaps she knew that her intentions were less than honorable, forbidding her to do what was right rather than what was legal.

The legalities did not bind her to making everything right between us and our father after his death.

The wide, green lawn yawned with openness as the car made a turn into the wrought iron gated entrance. Cemeteries are like libraries. You have reverence for the books that knowledge from others who have come before you, or who have taken the time to record the profoundness of life. Cemeteries give a tangible account of the many souls who have come before you, and they memorialize who these people touched, what they stood for, and what their brilliant—or tarnished—legacies are.

I slid out of the car, steadying myself on the soft carpet of grass beneath my feet. Walking with a sister on either side, the men, friends, and family who served as pallbearers walked in unison, balancing the high-glossed wooden box containing my father’s remains toward the waiting grave.

A dark green tent shielded the attendees from the now Florida sun. We each scooted into the front row, close to the freshly-cut square of ground. A large red rose sat on each of our chairs. The priest said a few words as we stared at the closed casket, its occupant never having to address another concern.

On cue, we stood up, a rose in our hands, eyes cast down, and a deep, heaving sadness hung in the air. I watched as my hand extended, tossing my rose forward. Uncontrollable, shuddering despair gushed forward from my insides, presenting itself in noisy gulps of air. Distressed tears chased one after the other down my cheeks to the corners of my mouth. The bitter, salty water pricked the insides of my mouth and tongue.

It felt like a remembrance of my life—of my father, the man who had forsaken us for so many years. I had cried tears like this before.

A tender thud could be heard as each flower struck the box top. My older sister, Diane, said, Wait, wait…this is for Lucy, another sister who had been forsaken with extreme anguish by her Daddy. Each touched the stem and cast it down to join the fragrant heap of beauty.

Slowly, the casket lowered into the grave. Its whine dictated that this show was over. It was time to turn away, continuing a life with no mother and now, no father. Diane asked Annette to join us for an afternoon meal and swim at an elegant Coconut Grove mansion shared with us courtesy of her friends. Annette’s curt response was an emphatic No.

I didn’t know at that moment that the pretending was over. Annette was now on a mission to make the final move to take everything that she had selfishly prayed for, mesmerizing my father to give her everything that he owned. She had already locked us out of our father’s home, taking every stick of furniture, his medical books that he wanted us to have, his paintings that he wanted me to have. She had taken his certificates, diplomas, and Board certification papers that outlined his achievements as a surgeon.

There was so little left of him. Even less than I knew at that moment.

As we walked slowly away to our waiting cars, the grass tugged at my heels. It was as if there was more to do or say. But, what? I had tried to do more during my father’s long-term sickness with bladder cancer. I had moved to Sarasota to be closer to him after my second divorce, wanting to perhaps establish a relationship of friendship that an adult father and daughter should share. But was that enough?

Diane gently pulled me aside and asked me why I had cried so hard at his funeral. He never made his amends to us, his girls, I said. Realizing that sheer willpower was not enough to have closure, I slipped into further feelings of anger, rage, a sense of betrayal. I felt cheated out of an opportunity to a more normal relationship with him. Instead of feeling at peace with him, regrets spewed forward with choking speed.

Our dysfunctional family dynamics had affected my choice of mates, and had led to two failed marriages and numerous doomed love relationships. My emotional experiences were from my parents. I had been acting out their fears, neediness, and anxieties. Not only was the depravity pervasive in my endeavors to foster healthy external relationships, but it also was evident in the relationship that I had with my sisters. The fantasy that my father would, finally, unconditionally accept me, understand me, see me as the most valuable part of his life, was quashed. The opportunity floated away like an escaped balloon, soaring, twisting and turning erratically.

The cherished feelings of being admired, loved, and needed by the most important man in my life were vanquished.

---

1 Ave Maria Franz Schubert b.1797

2 Corner of Eden 1998 Kathy Troccoli

Chapter 2: This Man We Called DaddyChapter 2 photos

My father, Alvaro, was a young boy when his mother fled her unhappy marriage. The year was 1920: the year that the U.S. passed the 18th and 19th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, the year that Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth ³ dominated the sports world, the year that the first airmail traveled from New York to San Francisco.

It was the year that my father and his mother, Maria, left the only country that they had ever known. They left the sneers and snickers at home, the questions about my father’s within his parents’ marriage, and they went to America, the country that would become their ticket to a more promising future.

Life was hard for both my father and his mother. She spent long hours bent over a factory sewing machine earning barely a living wage. My father slept and played in a wooden box behind her chair. A nanny was a luxury they couldn’t afford in America. Later, he became a latchkey kid, coming home to a bone-chilling apartment in the winter and a stifling apartment in the summer.

The only way he could escape his hardships was by daydreaming.

In these daydreams, he imagined himself saving others from physical pain and death. These daydreams transformed into reality when, after graduating from Vanderbilt University, he attended medical school at the National University of Mexico and became a doctor.

It was there my father met his first wife. They had a son, though he did not survive beyond his sixth birthday. He died of a childhood illness, in a country with only barebones medicine that, even then, was not always readily available to save anyone. My father later recounted how doctors in training had to rely on donations from drug manufacturers to treat their . The system was fragmented, uncertain, and ineffective.

Young rural doctors like him also had to be resourceful. One day, a man who lived in the same building as my father banged on his door, screaming that his wife was in labor. Without time to change his shirt or wash his hands, my father ran with the man to their floor. The baby’s tiny head protruded from the woman’s vagina. Premature at six-and-half months, the baby was not breathing due to the umbilical cord being wrapped around his neck. My father, then a young medical student, performed the necessary retrieval extraction procedures. He sent the baby’s father running to the pharmacy to get some drugs to inject into the baby. Fortunately, the mother lived without contracting puerperal fever because of unsterile obstetrical procedures; the baby survived, becoming stronger as my father took the right precautions to give the right dose of medications.

But his medical work could also be dangerous. In Mexico, he lived with the indigenous people. He spoke of a time that several country bandits brought their comrade to him. The man had a gunshot wound. His fellow bandits told my father that he better save their friend or else. Even though my father was running a 101-degree fever, he had no choice but to attend to the dying man. While he worked to save this young man’s life, first extracting the metal from his chest, then sewing the wound with gut, the patient’s buddies stood around with machetes hanging from their belts, pistols shoved into their back pants pockets and boots. Luckily for everyone, the patient survived. My father, the young country doctor, felt especially lucky.

My father’s early adult years were also marked by his own troubled relationship with his parents. When Maria, his mother, found out that he was in a relationship, she demanded that he leave Mexico and return to Colombia or the United States. She didn’t sacrifice and scrimp her savings for him to have his dalliances.

But in his heart, my father knew Colombia held no future. He stayed in Mexico.

His relationship with his father, Santiago, was equally , if not more so. After my father finished his Bachelor’s degree at Vanderbilt University, he decided to to Colombia. He wanted to be near his father, to create that father-son relationship that he so desperately needed. But, his father didn’t have the same desire for a relationship. He simply had no connection with his son.

Over the years, my father also sent many letters begging his father for financial help as he struggled through his studies in the United States and Mexico. His father neglected these pleas. On one visit to Colombia, my father tried to meet with his own father. As the appointed time for the meeting came and went, my father felt a pain sharper than a rat’s greedy bite gnawing at his heart. People rushed by him on the busy sidewalks of Bogota, not knowing what he was feeling and not caring anyway. As he waited, the cold bit to the core of his fingertips, his backbone ached, his legs were numb. Then, while my father stood lonely on the street corner, a stranger walked by and spat the word, bastard, at him.

His father never showed.

Family problems were not the only issues that plagued him, however.

While living in Mexico, my father was diagnosed with Supraorbital Nerve Neuralgia. This caused him excruciating frontal forehead pain, which later would morph into intense migraine headaches.

Neither Novocain, alcohol, nor