Today is "Election" Day

If you can call that an “election”. Cuba’s National Assembly is meeting today to decide who will follow Fidel as the supreme leader of Cuba. His dominance over Cuba was just about to qualify for AARP status in a few months from now, so the surprising fact is that Fidel actually is stepping down before reaching such a big milestone. He probably hasn’t been reading this blog to be aware of all the benefits of AARP membership. That, and the fact that the first letter of AARP stands for “American” so he figured that the Cuban “revolution” would probably not qualify for the coveted status.

The question for all of us Cuban-Americans, and I’m sure also for Cubans everywhere and on the Island, is whether anything will change with the new leadership. Many argue that it’s just a new name in the same pedigree and that nothing will change until Fidel is truly out of the picture. Others more optimistically, hope for this to be the beginning of improved relations with the exiled community and democratic reforms on the island. Only time will tell.

Being a card-holding AARP member myself, and having left Cuba when I was just a few months old, to me Fidel is synonymous with Cuba. Like many other Cuban-born individuals of my generation, I was raised and educated away from the homeland, and knew only in theory what my parents tried to instill in me as love for the homeland, love for the family that we left behind and the hope of some day returning to a Cuba Libre.

So now that I’m facing a possibility that in my lifetime I may be able to visit a “changed” Cuba, I’m all confused as to how to react and what to expect.

It has been a lifetime of knowing about it, just as I know about other planets in our galaxy. There, floating in space somewhere, but not accessible, at least with our current technology. So it was with Cuba. I know it is there, just 90 miles south of Key West, but so mystical and elusive that it’s as real as Santa Claus on Christmas Eve. Everywhere, but really nowhere.

What do I wish for? On the island, I hope for democracy, for liberty to ideological prisoners, for food on the tables of all Cubans, and for freedom of movement and expression. With the world at large, I hope for a peaceful transition to improved relations with all Cubans around the world and for Cubans to be able to travel freely to and from Cuba without the many impediments and restrictions we currently face. From the community of exiled Cubans, to loosen the stronghold on the jugular vein of the island and use at least one hand to reach out to our brothers and sisters across the Straits of Florida. I don’t think that’d be asking for much after a lifetime of not knowing the true meaning of the word homeland.

The icing on the cake would be to make my father’s lifetime dream a reality. To be able to drive our own car to Key West, then on a ferry for the 90 miles journey to Havana. Drive southeast through the island to arrive in Santiago de Cuba. Reach El Caney, his birthplace and home until adulthood. There, meet the few enduring siblings and the newer generations, and finally start the healing process. Like an arm that had been severed and later found, still alive. And finally, allowed to reconnect to the rest of the body where it belongs. Would that be too much asking?.

As the day is about to close, I read the results of the “elections” and get a strong feeling that my hopes may be slow in materializing and that we need to plan for a very long life if I am to witness any of these wishes during my lifetime.

The pictures: Above, sunrise today. Middle, view from living room. Bottom: view from behind the house.