Things not remembered are as if they never were
An old memory surfaced today, one I had not heard from in years.
I was a freshman in high school. It was a Saturday morning, my parents had gone to get groceries, I stayed home. The phone rang. An operator asked me whether I would accept a call from Cuba. Yes.
It was my uncle, a man I had no recollection of ever meeting. He called to let my father know that their mother had died. I don’t remember her either.
It was strange and awful feeling, waiting to give my parents that news.
Posted on August 1st, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: Cuba, personal observations
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Thank you for sharing this example of a family torn apart by the politics of repression. I’m sure such memories are surfacing today throughout the Cuban exile community. It reminds me of my brief visit to East and West Berlin in 1979, when the Berlin Wall was still very much in place and similar tragedies were a way of life.
To quote the last line of an editorial in today’s Washington Post, “A dictator who has deprived his able and culturally rich nation of freedom and prosperity for five decades may or may not finally be on his deathbed. But his country is clearly ready to move on.”
I’m not Cuban, but so am I.