Vivian Pellas - Vivian Pellas - Turning tears into smiles

135 people died.

Of the 146 passengers on Flight 414, only 11 people survived. Vivian Pellas is one of them. This is her testimony of how she returned from the brink of death and how it changed her life forever as she came to understand the mission she had to fulfill.

They say that when you want to write your life story, the blank page calls for the movie of your life to start. Then . . .

you dust off your fears and count your scars, including those of your body, as well as those of your soul, you tear them open and pick at them until they bleed again.

I’ve asked myself many times, why did all of this happen?What was the purpose of experiencing what I went through?Why was I the protagonist of a story carved by pain?Today I know that happiness comes from following your heart, and I found it in my family and in the smile of a child.

CARLOS PELLAS

When Vivian placed the final text of her autobiography in my hands, and as I became the first reader of this chronicle, I never imagined she would tell her story in such a sublime way. When I finished reading those words, which are now this book, with tears in my eyes I understood why it took her twelve years to write it.

Reliving everything she went through in her life—from her exile from Cuba to the trauma of the plane crash, and considering the implications of the complex and extremely painful rehabilitation she had to endure—must have been, unequivocally, more than an arduous exercise; it was an utter challenge to her spiritual tenacity.

Today I fully understand . . . and I could not hold back the tears as I read all those passages of the book, which deeply moved me. They not only brought back the tortuous moments that I went through, but also made me remember how essential we have been to each other, and how, at the most difficult moments in our journey, we have always been together to support, comfort, and encourage each other, overcoming the challenges that life gives us and that catch us by surprise.

Vivian writes that I was always her inspiration, but the truth of the matter is that she is the one who has inspired me. I have admired her strength and optimism since the moment I met her. Those are the values that empowered her to overcome the hardship of her exile as well as many of the ordeals she has had to face since childhood. I was even more surprised by her strength as she embraced her new homeland: Nicaragua.

Witnessing her torturous rehabilitation sessions heartened me not to give up, and to face the pain with the same courage and determination that she did.

Vivian’s life, which is depicted with simplicity and humility in her autobiography, is not only one of the most compelling stories I have ever read, but also one of the most inspirational ever written. Many people, who face a tragedy in which they unexpectedly lose a loved one or are part of an accident that leaves permanent wounds and critical aftereffects, spend much of their remaining lives lamenting in bitterness, incapable of finding purpose for their existence.

As the reader will be able to see in this narrative, Vivian’s life has not been easy at all, but her optimism and ongoing determination have helped her overcome the obstacles in her path. These challenges have forged her extraordinary character, making her not only a woman with great self-confidence, but also a woman with an enormous heart.

When I met Vivian, I fell in love with her immediately, and at that moment I knew she was the woman I would spend the rest of my life with. Nevertheless, I have to admit I never imagined she would become the Vivian Pellas she is today.

It is admirable how even with her flesh raw and with multiple fractures, she muttered: “I’m going to build a burn unit for children in Nicaragua.” Just at that moment, when anyone else would have been thinking about his or her own plight and extreme pain, she was already exploring her new reason for being, thinking about how to alleviate the suffering of others. She did not blame God for everything that was going on in her life. Quite the contrary: she was trying to find the divine plan that He had devised for her.

On several occasions, Vivian was on the brink between life and death. I’m sure that her love for our children and the fear of leaving them alone, the support of her parents, family members, and friends, and the magnificent work of the doctors and the nurse that took care of her were factors that helped her survive her precarious condition. However, the most important factor was, unquestionably, her unwavering faith in God!

Vivian was convinced that, behind all this personal tragedy, there was a mission that God had in store for her. This faith filled her with strength, helped her withstand the colossal pain of the treatments and, essentially, transformed her life to pursue one cause: to create a world that is more just, compassionate, and inclusive for the thousands of children from low-income families that are severely burned in our country every year.

After witnessing what Vivian has accomplished through APROQUEN, God’s mission for her couldn’t be clearer: to make her the Guardian Angel of pediatric burn victims in Nicaragua.

No doubt Vivian’s story will become an inspiration for many others to channel their efforts into creating a more tolerant, just, and benevolent world.

Our story is precisely that of . . . continuous rebirth.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta

Vivian at the age of two. Havana, Cuba, 1956.

The Cuba of My Childhood

I came into this world on March 5, 1954. I was born in the former “Quinta La Covadonga” Hospital in Havana, the same place where my brother was born. I was a joyful and vigorous baby. However, I had a problem in my pylorus: I would expel milk every time I was fed. Had it not been for the timely opinion of a doctor, who determined that the cause of my symptoms was nervous spasm, I would have needed surgery. Nonetheless, a few drops of medicine before the bottle cured me completely.

Even so, the truth is that, during my first months of life, I cried a lot and would not let my mom sleep. The passing days and the baptismal water that the priest sprinkled on my head at the Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus eventually soothed my crying. I was baptized Vivian, because when my mom was single, people in the street would ask her if she was Vivien Leigh, the actress playing the main character in the movie Gone with the Wind , which was very popular at the time. She was asked the same question so often that she decided, if she ever had a daughter, that would be her name. My mother’s dream came true and she named me Vivian.

Lydia García de Fernández, Vivian’s mother. Havana, Cuba, ca. 1935.

I started kindergarten when I was three. My mom said I was a fast learner. That is where I took my first ballet classes. It was my first introduction to dancing, a passion that would accompany me all my life and that saved me in the most trying times of my existence.