Joe and Gloria An Immigrant's Story of Love: Love, joy, happiness, beauty, pleasures. Freedom! He wants it all.

By Joseph A. Oyanadel

After a series of incredible, extraordinary events that dramatically changes his life, the author is compelled to look at his past, present, and future, with an entirely new light. A journey into the real story of his life that he was so blind to see, all the doors he was afraid to open, and all the questions he was afraid to ask. A story of love and an insurmountable joy of hope.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Covenant Books, Inc.
• Release date: Jan 3, 2024
• ISBN: 9798888519554

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Chapter 1: The Beginning

Chapter 2: The School Years

Chapter 3: Finding Gloria

Chapter 4: Leaving the Country

Chapter 5: My First Job

Chapter 6: Connecticut

Chapter 7: Waterbury

Chapter 8: Virjune Manufacturing Company

Chapter 9: Europe

Chapter 10: Ricky's Story

Chapter 11: Oliver's Onset

Chapter 12: My First Incredible Dream

Chapter 13: Saying Goodbye

Chapter 14: A Single Strand of Gloria's Hair on Her Pillow

Chapter 15: My First Incredible Dream-Vision with Gloria

Chapter 16: A Miracle

Chapter 17: Looking for Evidence of a Spiritual Life

Chapter 18: The Evidence I Found about Jesus

Chapter 19: The Kerygma

Epilogue

About the Author

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Joe and Gloria An Immigrant's Story of Love

Love, joy, happiness, beauty, pleasures. Freedom! He wants it all.

Joseph A. Oyanadel

ISBN 979-8-88851-954-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-88851-955-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2023 Joseph A. Oyanadel

All rights reserved

First Edition

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Covenant Books

11661 Hwy 707

Murrells Inlet, SC 29576

www.covenantbooks.com

To Gloria Oyanadel,

Oliver, Kathleen, Maurice, and Maureen

With all my love

Acknowledgments

I am deeply grateful for those that shared their mind, heart, and inspiration and especially to those that intensify the illumination for me by providing the contrast.

Fr. John Riccardo of ACTS XXIX

Dr. Gaston Soublette—Chilean philosopher, author, and pedagogue.

Dr. David Berlinski—American author, philosopher, and professor at Center of Science and Culture.

David Galenter—Yale School of Engineering and Applied Science.

Dr. Jason Lisle—Christian astrophysicist and founder of the Biblical Science Institute.

Fleming Ruthledge—lecturer of Biblical theology.

Dr. Karl Gustav Jung—psychiatrist, anthropologist, archaeologist, literature, philosopher, and psychologist.

Dr. Scott Hahn—theologian and Christian apologist.

Jeff Cavins, MA, BA—author and Biblical scholar.

Rev. Bishop Robert Barron—founder of Word on Fire.

Rev. Dave Pivonka—president of Franciscan University of Steubenville.

Fr. Mike Schmitz—director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry.

Sister Miriam James Heidland—Society of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity.

Eric Metaxas of Socrates in the City and American author.

Dr. Stephen C. Meyer—Philosophy of Science at Cambridge University.

Dr. John Lennox—mathematician and professor at Oxford and Cambridge University.

Dr. James Tour—professor of chemistry, material science, nanoengineering, and computer science at Rice University.

Richard Dawkins—influential evolutionary biologist and atheist writer.

Stephen Hawking—theoretical physicist and cosmologist professor of mathematics general relativity and quantum gravity and atheist.

Charles Darwin—naturalist, geologist, and biologist. Author of Evolution Theory.

Prologue

I met him one morning, by the lake.

An eighty-year-old man, comfortably seated on a lawn chair, staring at the calm waters of Winchester Lake in the northwest corner of Connecticut. In the midst of his quiet loneliness, he had been waiting, just waiting with distant, misty eyes for the day he will see her again. It had been five years now, but time had lost its grip on him. Age had lost its grip on him, even death had lost its grip on him. He had continued to work forty hours a week. His clear, technical mind, even at his advanced age, allowed him to enjoy the task of designing tools for the fabrication of surgical instruments. Some days, he felt a tightness in his stomach like a void, a painful longing for the sound of the familiar voice, and the nearness of the familiar presence. There were also happy days when he thought of what he knew now. Deep inside his heart, he knew he must share what had happened to him. He must tell his story.

Good morning, Joseph, how are you? It is a beautiful day today, isn't it?

Yes, it is! Today, however, I feel an incredible excitement when I look back at my experiences, regardless of the emotional reactions I had then. Now I can see them with a totally different understanding as if I have been given lenses that allow me to see the world with total clarity. You know? All the events in my past seemed to have been experienced by me with a great degree of blindness, all my reactions to them, in line with what would be considered quite normal. Actually, most of my life, I walked my journey under such blindness. I suspect now that most of us have the same misfortune. The reality that most of us see, seems to me, not the reality that we want or agree with: suffering, pain, death, cruelty, misfortunes, illnesses, wars.

We all know, somehow, this world that we experience doesn't make sense. Why is the world in such disarray? There is something wrong, isn't there? Why do I have such incredible longing and desire for happiness as if happiness was my experience before, in a different world, and now I long for it, when clearly this happiness and joy is not a consistent part of our world! Why is that? I feel as a fish that someone took out of water and longs to go back to water, which is its natural element. Not air!

There must be a different truth behind it all. Perhaps, even a different reality, a reality that contains the promise of happiness and love that we all seem to crave. I wonder, would we experience the feeling of thirst if water didn't exist?

Oh well, fear not. After my intense and diligent research, I have found a different reality, no doubt in my mind. I have found a different way to see the world, and I promise to show it to you.

Chapter 1

The Beginning

Joseph, how young were you when you became consciously aware of your life?

I was three years old when I experienced one of my first vivid memories. I was awakened one morning to find that my cradle had been covered with multicolored balloons. The morning light projected a shower of beautiful soft hues over my body. My brother-in-law had filled my cradle with them as an expression of his love for me. A vision of profound joy I will always remember. He would carry me on his shoulders and bring me to a room where I was fascinated and mesmerized by a brilliant neon light of an RCA Victor radio. The radio had a round magic eye that would illuminate when tuned on a radio station. He would move the dial to a line and then fill the eye with the beautiful green neon light, just to see the joy on my face.

I was five years old when I experienced one of my saddest memories of my childhood, which has been burned into my brain so deeply. For many years, I felt the same pain, fear, and despair, whenever it came to my mind. I feel I must tell you this part of my story with some trepidation as I do not want you to conclude that I am an ungrateful son, dishonoring his father. He was the father we loved, but in spite of his dedication to us and great qualities as a loving husband and splendid family leader, he fell victim to an insidious, horrible mental illness.

One day, my father, who had become a raging alcoholic, was at the door of the house. My mother had circled the wagons around us seven children, locking doors, and praying for God's protection. Suddenly, loud knocks at the door. Bang! Bang! Bang! My father was punching the door so loudly we all froze in panic. Though I did not cry, I was paralyzed with terror. My father was now a monster with glassy eyes and unsteady gait, demanding, with a loud voice, money from my mother, which would buy his next drink. Unexpectedly, policemen came rushing into our home with clubs, wrestling my father to the ground. I can never erase the vision from my memory, watching my father being dragged by his arms and legs by four policemen, struggling with powerful resistance, and being carried away between two horses. I had seen it all from the corner of the room, curled up like a deflated ball.

Three year old Joe - Chuquicamata

We were living in Chuquicamata, a copper mining town in the desert in the north of Chile. No trees, just tumbleweeds. My father's very charming, joyful, and attractive personality became his demise in such a frontier sort of mining town. Someone had given him a very potent drug mixed with alcohol. He would be, never again, the gentleman my mother married.

Chile is a long strip of land on the Pacific side of South America, with climate stretching from moonlike desert at the north, to rain, snow, and ice at the Patagonia and Antarctic. Four years earlier, I was born in an insignificant little gold mining town called Andacollo, in the north part of Chile, which now has become a charming little tourist town. It was 1939. My father was in charge of the mining equipment. I was the seventh child of eight children. The Oyanadel and Aguirre, my parents' families, were both very well-to-do families with great promise for successful lives. That was until my father succumbed to alcoholism, alienating our family and friends, plunging my mother and her children into a stigma-filled existence and into poverty. Dilapidated doors and walls framed our lives for a long time, when alcoholism was not considered a mental illness.

My father German Oyanadel

My mother had five sisters and two brothers. Her parents inherited the old European culture that would determine the future of their children according to their family structure and custom of the day. My mother, although not the youngest of the sisters, was determined to face a future as the caretaker of the parents. Apparently, her humble and gentle demeanor was the determining factor. As such, this designated daughter was trained and expected to learn the duties of such a future helper, instead of looking for higher scholastic pursuit. However, the parents' plans for my mother did not succeed due to one of the Oyanadel brother's yearning for her to be his wife.

When I was born, during the delivery, my scapula, one of my upper arm bones on my left side, was dislodged in between the clavicle, causing my head to have the tendency to lean to one side. This was not discovered until much later in my childhood, which had serious consequences for my well-being and character during my puberty and early adulthood.

My mother, a devout Catholic, who vowed not to dissolve her marriage, had eight children and two other babies that did not survive the rigors of this life.

During her struggle with my father, she sought counsel with the Catholic Church and became very close with Mother Vicenta, a gentle, sweet nun who, at the same time, radiated wisdom and strength. Mother Vicenta was blind, but somehow she moved and talked to my mother as if she could clearly see her surroundings at the convent of the Sisters of Charity. She quickly advised my mother that her priority should be the safety of her children and that she would not be breaking any promises she had made to God. My father had broken his promises. So she finally escaped the terrors of her marriage and reestablished the sanctity of her home with incredible courage and relentless sacrifice for all of us. No doubt, she was well on her way to sainthood. My mother had to take the role of mother and father for all of us. Mother Vicenta made connections with hospitals. In those days, the Catholic Church ran hospitals, and nuns were nurses. Mother Vicenta found a job for my mother so she would be able to relocate. Mother Josefina, with her expertise, instructed her on all her duties.

Upon my mother's decision to leave my father, we escaped to the south of the country, toward the capital. We were hoping to arrive at the larger city of Santiago, where, perhaps, it would be more difficult for our father to find us. Our family's adventures of escape had, indeed, now begun.

Traveling from the desert part of the country, my eyes were glued to the window of the fast-moving train, watching in wonder on how the countryside was turning into glorious green pastures and hills. I had never seen green fields like these before. Tall trees, great leafy trees, fields of vineyards. Fruit trees winking at me with orange, yellow, and red-colored eyes. Fields of flowers, horses, and cows bending down in humble posture to reach the moist grass of the morning, brushing away insects with their tail. As soon as the train cleared the coastal hills, the Pacific Ocean came into view in all its majesty. From the height of the hills, I stared at the immensity of the waters with emotional dizziness, overwhelmed by the view. This was the first time I had seen the ocean. I remember a distinct feeling of being overwhelmed by the vastness of the water. For a moment, I thought the ocean was luring me into the depths of its bosom, with liquid fingers.

One early afternoon, we came to a small country town near a powerful river. The river had some sidewinding channels where I was sitting at the edge, wetting my feet. The water would flow into the fast-moving water of the river. Suddenly, I found myself enjoying some playful twisting rays of light dancing around me, here and there. Somehow, I was also moving and turning and, at times, rolling, feeling an incredible peace. Then I was grabbed by my arms and pulled upward from where I was enjoying the dancing sunlight.

Apparently, I had fallen into the channel and was carried away to the river. In my innocence, I had no fear or concern. I was five years old. I was completely enjoying the sunlight dancing through the water. I do not recall being scared or having any knowledge of what had happened to me. I was without fear, pain, or discomfort. I was just simply enjoying the dancing lights. One of my brothers had seen me rolling at the bottom of the channel and alerted my oldest brother who rescued and worked on me to remove the water from my lungs. Shortly after, I found myself seated upon the warm afternoon grass, trembling with purple lips, watching my little garments dry on a bright green shrub.

Eventually, my mother arrived with all of us at a house of one of our relatives in Santiago. They reluctantly gave us a provisional place to stay. At the end of the patio, there was an irrigation ditch that ran along its edge. From time to time, we had all played at the edge of the contaminated water with little paper boats. Soon, we were all infected with typhus, and we all had become sick, reeling with fever. The local doctor had alerted my mother that we would all die, even the oldest one. My mother, in desperation, took us all to the small church across the street. She knelt in front of the cross and begged God not to take us. She prayed with great faith. Please, God, do not take my children. They are all I have left in my life.

In days, all of us started to show signs of recovery, to the amazement of the local doctor.

My mother worked in hospitals to feed us, sometimes double shift, leaving us with our older sister. We were a very tight family unit and did exactly as we were told. Later, I had learned that this is a peculiar phenomenon among the victims of alcoholism.

There were occasions, at the beginning of the struggle, where, for a particular day, there was no food for my mother, except for the communion at the early mass in church, although none of us have any memory of having suffered hunger at all.

Did you have a chance to go to school?

Chapter 2

The School Years

Most of my early childhood was generally happy but tainted at moments by a sad melancholic depression, which began to deepen as my teen years brought me into interaction with my school peers. One day, I discovered that, indeed, there was an oddity about me. I had never noticed that the tilting of my head was setting me apart from the rest of my classmates. I began to have a deep sense of awkwardness. At home, I began to study myself for hours, in front of the mirror, and forced my shoulder and neck muscles to straighten my head. Store windows, as I walked the streets, would betray my efforts, revealing in reflection my oddity. I was the ugly duckling whose life would be different than I thought it would be. I was sinking deep into childhood depression. I did not know then that this experience would begin to carve in me a deep sensitivity that allowed me to experience life so much deeply than most. Depression seems to bring deep emotional inner tears triggered by unexpected stimuli.

Already, as a young boy, I was experiencing moments of deep thoughts. I began to look for and desire lonely places to be alone. My home with my brothers and sisters was the only place I did not feel deformed or ugly. I began to avoid people and to find friendly but lonely trails. The ocean waters brought deep joy by its power and incredible enormity, beauty, and playfulness. The ocean certainly did not care how I looked. A little yellow flower found behind a tree seemed to understand my sadness and bring comfort to my soul. My sadness seemed