Benjamín Vicuña has just published his first book: Blanca, la niña que quería volar (Planeta). "It is a tribute to my daughter and an overflowing and honest expression of the experience I had to live. A tragedy that struck me like lightning and left me empty," says the actor.
That personal catastrophe to which the artist refers is the death of his first daughter, Blanca, fruit of his marriage to Carolina "Pampita" Ardohain. The girl passed away in 2012 at the age of six, and life took a turn for the whole family. "That scar and that pain are like love: it accompanies you all your life and never disappears," explains the author.
Vicuña does not make up that sadness, but he does not show it either. He emphasizes again and again the mourning is personal and non-transferable and that this work does not pretend to be a self-help manual but speaks of his own metamorphosis and the tools that served to accompany that transit.
"A mantle of love"
Blanca died in 2012 at the age of six. Photo: Planeta.
More than a decade has passed since Blanca's death. Vicuña does not use euphemisms when mentioning the fact, since he understands that you even have to "put words to what cannot be named." To continue he needed to fulfill certain rites, overcome the guilt of continuing to live, deal with his own pity and that of others and reconcile with faith and life.
Hand in hand with Clarín he spoke of the path he traveled during that duel.
Reporter: How did you prevent the book from being a kind of manual, a self-help edition?
Benjamin Vicuña: I repeat quite a bit that it is not self-help in order to make it understood that I am not lowering any lines. I also do not like to be given advice when I do not ask for it, it is one of the long reflections I had during this process.
It is the testimony of a grieving process that, as I always repeat, is absolutely individual. If someone can find – and I hope this – some tool, some inspiration, some light in the middle of the ocean to not feel so alone, the mission of the book is fulfilled.
Benjamín Vicuña: "Grief is something that crosses us all, it is absolutely transversal." Photo: Planeta.
Q.: How was the writing process?, Was the decision to write it difficult: to remember the pain, to assume that those words remained forever, also to think that there was going to be a lot of interest from the press?
B.V.: I think the word heals. I always liked to take refuge in books, since I was a child. I think they give you a parallel world and, at the same time, develop an internal world.
I admit that the process was hard, but I felt the need: on the one hand, from catharsis; and on the other, to collect fragments of these last ten years of my life and share with many people who every day show me affection and questions, understanding that they see me as a reference of something I lived and what apparently I was able to get ahead.
That responsibility, to be a kind of ambassador of pain, made me write the book. One of the things that held me back, beyond opening a door and materializing what I was feeling, was that something as sensitive and intimate as grief could be taken out of context. But the drive was stronger and I don't regret it. I'm very mobilized with what's happening with the book and what it's generating.
Grief is something that crosses us all, it is absolutely transversal. The book is in great demand and that tells you about many people who have lived it and others who want to know how to accompany one of the greatest mysteries of life, because death is part of life.
It is a very beautiful mantle of love, like the one I received when we lived my daughter's, where friendship, affection and containment were a container and a fundamental pillar to get ahead.
Q.: Beyond feeling at times "an ambassador of pain", how and when did you assume that you were not just that and that Blanca's death was not the only thing that defined you?
Benjamín Vicuña: "I cried out to be told how to do this, if the grief, anguish and pain were going to settle at some point." Photo Instagram.
B.V.: I went from being a UNICEF ambassador to this. I resent the need to rate and classify people quickly.
Of course I am many more things than what crossed me in life: there is a child, there is a young man, there is a man, there is a father, there is a son, there is a professional, there is a cheerful man who plays with his children and raises, there is a man who loves life, who likes the theater and loves his vocation.
The ambassador of pain was in spite of me. I felt that at times people approached me in intimate places, at small tables, at large tables, through television programs and social networks and they told me 'Benjamin, forgive me for asking you, but I am living this ...'. And it is inevitable to feel that responsibility of having to answer, of wanting to help with a testimony.
Many times I responded with what I received, when I cried out to be told how to do with this, if the grief, anguish and pain were going to settle at some point.
A very important person, a Chilean psychologist and writer who had lived through the death of his son, told me that the pain was transformed. And that's exactly what happened: hand in hand with time, different tools, therapy, love and friendship. But, basically, of time.
"There is a period where you start to remember with a smile on your face and you realize that with an anecdote you can laugh again," Vicuña said. Photo: Planeta.
Q.: How did you, as a family, manage to ensure that Blanca's memory is not only linked to sadness and that she is named with joy, especially among her brothers and sisters?
B.V.: That was part of the process, part of the dynamic. We went from absolute pain, from denial, from anger, to acceptance. It is a very long process. This is five steps forward and two steps back. It's like the wind, you have to let yourself go; It makes everything clean but then it rains again.
There is a period where you begin to remember with a smile on your face and you realize that with an anecdote you can laugh again. It is a genuine, lively smile, no longer melancholy. And that's where one begins to cohabit with that pain and where you realize that many times our loved ones accompany us forever, as long as there is a memory.
There isn't a day I don't think about it; but from the beauty, from the beautiful. Seeing my children laugh, feeling the wind on my face, sometimes on stage, in a text, a book or a movie that takes me to that area. Today I can go through it with a beautiful emotion.
Sometimes when my children see me remembering I tell them: 'I do this with love, for me it is nice. If I drop a tear, it's a tear of love, not sadness.'
Q.: You say that "our society pushes us not to stop, to continue doing and producing" and, in fact, you returned to work very soon. What is your position on this, are we allowed to oppose the pressure that "the show must go on" obligatorily and quickly?
"Grief is non-transferable and personal," Vicuña said. Photo: Fernando de la Orden.
B.V.: Grief is non-transferable and personal. But, obviously, you have to have empathy, love, containment and humanity with people who are going through a delicate moment. There is a void there, there should be mourning forums, no doubt. Whether or not you resume work as soon as possible has to do with the possibilities that the law gives you and that you give yourself.
At the same time, they gave me the possibility to return to a job. I returned after several weeks to my vocation -which is my love-, thinking that it was going to do me good. The first scene was a bloody shooting: after two hours I had to go home.
For a long time it happened to me: I decided not to do scenes of hospitals, or sad farewells. And the truth is that life and necessity led me to even have to act interpreting those types of stories. Today I feel it as a capital, I can tell you because I know what they are about.
Q.: Faith, psychology and psychiatry are very present in your book. What role did each play in your grieving process?
"Today's is a Benjamin who looks at the sky more often than before and who made a quest to paste certain fragments of my life and understand." Photo: Planeta.
B.V.: I am privileged. I was able to draw on faith, psychology and psychiatry (and even more). I'm restless, I'm curious, I do therapy, I also worked with a psychiatrist. All my life I have been curious with numerology, with astrology, with listening and trying to learn the best of different religions.
Among all this I was building a loving universe that embraces me and where I try to get some answers.
Q.: You talk about the metamorphosis that is experienced after such a significant loss: how was yours?, who do you think you were and who did you become?
B.V.: What is clear to me about this metamorphosis is that after ten years there is a big, mature, stronger man, with more questions than before. I have an easy smile, I love life, I love my children, I believe in God because God is in my house.
I find it difficult to understand many things, but I believe that today he is a Benjamin who looks at the sky more often than before and who made a search to paste certain fragments of my life and understand.
Q.: How was it possible to reconcile with life?
Benjamín Vicuña: "Life reconciled with me." Photo: Fernando de la Orden.
B.V.: Life reconciled with me. With trials and blessings like my children, with a tailwind that invited me to continue living, with the sometimes guilty ability to feel love again, to be in the present and not tied to the past or melancholy.
Thus, breathing and living the present, I realized that I believe again and that I love this life deeply.
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