DAY THREE; May 7, 1962
III
As we began to settle into the idea and what would have to be done in such short time (actually, it would take many, many years to truly begin to understand what this move had meant) we suddenly realized that our trip would actually start the following morning. The flight was scheduled for the morning of May 10, 1962. From Cruces, we would leave for La Habana on the morning of the 8th, by car. This would put us in the capital city by afternoon, and we would be at my abuelo’s favorite hotel, “Gran Hotel Inglaterra” sometime around 4pm. I had stayed at this hotel with him before. A grandiose building, circa 1925, about three blocks from the capitol and across from the park. In previous stays, the mood had been definitely brighter. In fact, I had then been allowed to “man” (as much as an 11 year old can “man” anything) the elevator and “help” at the front desk.
This time, when we would arrive at the hotel, the mood would be much darker. My mother and my sister in one room; my abuelo and I in another room. We wanted to be in Havana early, not because we had to go shopping for the trip; after all, what we could bring was reduced to a pair of pants, a shirt, one set of clean underwear, and US$5.00 if you had it, plus whatever you were wearing. The early start was because it was simply better not to delay the inevitable and we preferred to leave the small town of Cruces before word got out.
My grandfather returned to Cienfuegos, in order to prepare for the trip and to bring my grandmother to Cruces when he came back to pick us up the next day.
Despite wanting to leave without too much fuss, there were a few people to whom I wanted to say goodbye, even without saying goodbye. These were my friends with whom time was spent, with whom walks were taken and movies and girls (and boys, for the girls in the group… we were not “machistas”) watched. Young people who wanted to right the world and who did not understand what it was that would become of our own lives. How quickly we would all have to grow up in the years to come. Those who left and those who stayed.
It was agreed I would go to my friends’ and they would be told I had been invited to spend some time at an uncle’s house in Varadero, the well known beach resort in northern Cuba. This would allow me to say my goodbyes without really “breaking cover”.
The one person I most wanted to see was Charo. Her name was Rosario and she was a couple of years older than I. The daughter of a widowed mother, we had known each other for perhaps three years, but had become true and fast friends over the last few months, when I spent a lot of time at her house. We had learned to have trust in each other, and were totally open to talk about all matters. I don’t think I have been able to achieve that level of trust again.
When I arrived at her house, she was waiting for me. –“I saw you coming across the park, and your face tells me that something is happening” In the end, she was the only one who knew the reality of my eventual destiny. I could not keep her in the dark, she deserved to know. That was our farewell; she kissed me in a way that told me her feelings went beyond friendship and I returned the feeling. Perhaps if we had had a couple of more years, in a normal world, our relationship may have become something altogether different. We never saw each other again; only the memories remain and, like all memories of a long gone significant-other-type person, these may be better than what the real thing might have been.
After my farewell from Charo, the rest of the goodbyes went quickly according to plan and, at day’s end, I felt in a total daze. I went back home, realizing this had been the last day in my known world. Tomorrow, we would leave on a journey with no foreseeable return. I wanted to hide and cry, not knowing what to expect, not having a thread of an idea as to what my life would become in two days time.
DAY FOUR; My 8th, 1962
IV
When abuelo came back the next day, he brought my grandmother with him in order to have her take care of my two little brothers, from my mother’s second marriage. I would be reunited with the younger one, then about 2 years old, some 40 years later in the US. The older one I have not met again since then.
I said goodbye to my grandmother at the door of our house; she had refused to even consider going to Havana. As I look back today –and having done so many times since that day- I remember a loving, caring, patient woman who had already begun to show the effects of her family, for which she had fought so hard and long, being destroyed and torn apart (one of her three daughters, her husband and children, had already left Cuba the year before). Her eyes were teary then, as we said goodbye.
Today, after many years and after having learned many lessons in living, some not too kind, I can now look again into those eyes that never left my memories, and fully understand that what they reflected was the immense, wrenching pain she felt in her heart; she knew in her mother’s eye that we would not see each other again. She just said –“God be with you m’ijo” “nos veremos pronto”… Go with God, my son, we will see each other soon. I left wanting to, somehow, believe that.
Many families went through this pain and separation; some 17,000 children were sent alone, to the US, from 1960 through 1962 in what came to be known as the Pedro Pan airlift. Some families were able to reunite later; many were not. The fact that pain and hurt were widespread did not lessen what was being felt and lived by us, as a family, at the time. The pain and hurt that matters are the ones you and your family are experiencing; it is a very selfish thought, but it screams at you that everything and everyone else is irrelevant. Those who have had to leave home and family, only to have them remain alive in memories, and to do so for reasons beyond their control without real hopes of returning, may be able to understand what this means. It is a pain which will underline whatever is done thereafter through life, having an impact on all decisions and experiences. Also impacting those around you; people whom you may love and who love you and where there is no reason to be hurt as such. Most times this is not understood; it just happens. This separation may have happened many years ago but, in my psyche (and, most likely, in the psyche of all others who have come through the same process as well) it is ever-present.
A tear in the fabric of life, which nothing nor time can mend. It can be taped, glued, sewn (emotionally speaking, of course) but eventually, it will open again. In a strange way, it is a continuum in life; sometimes in the middle of numbness, there is joy in the bittersweet memories of many years ago, followed by the pain still felt as a result of the unwilling separation.
The essence of life?
Joy, pain, love, loss, recovery… acceptance, patience, fight and survival. Most important of all, keeping the faith and understanding that regardless of what may happen, there is always a chance to fight on and, like a phoenix, come back to full flight.
V
06:00 pm.
Once at the hotel, we had a family meeting in order to understand what needed to be done. All I knew was that tomorrow, on May 9th, my sister and I would have to report to the airport and spend the night there, waiting for the 10am “freedom” flight which would take us to a new life in “El Norte” the next morning.
-“You are the man and will have to take care of your sister”, my mother said to me. –“your grandfather will give you the name and the telephone of Mr. Herbert, a friend who knows you are coming”.
-“Mama, I’m only 15” I said, -“how can I take care of my sister if I don’t even know where we are going or where we will be?”. –“I’m scared and I’m not sure I want to go anywhere”.
-“Listen Rafelito”, a diminutive my family used with me, “you will not be alone” my grandfather told me. –“We have been preparing this for a year now and, although you are traveling alone, both of you will be received at the airport by people who will care for you”.
I went to bed that night and I remember praying that all this would be a nightmare, and that I would wake up in my bed, at home.
Not so… not to be. The nightmare was reality.
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