Para todos

by

This is for my grandparents who died in exile.
This is for my parents who will some day die in exile.
This is for Celia Cruz – Coño! – who died with the dignity of her convictions.
This is for the old man who used to tend the parking lot of my office building. A man made older than his age by 14 years and one day in fidel castro’s gulags.
This is for my Tia Amanda, whose eyes watch over this blog and whose grave in Cuba Ive never set flowers on.
This is for my Tia Mary and My Tio Pompy, who exiled first and helped bring us to freedom and never saw Cuba again.
This is for Guillermo Fariñas, frail and feeble from hunger, standing up against a tyranny.
This is for Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, a free man in castro’s prisons.
This is for Thomas Willard “Pete” Ray.
This is for my father in law who fought and survived the Bay of Pigs.
This is for my distraught mother in law who worried about him as he was beaten inhumanely in La Cabaña.
This is for every dissident.
This is for every martyr.
This is for every Cuban whose lost a love one:
To a bullet.
To a shark.
To a beating.
To the ocean.
To a prison cell.
This is for every American brother and sister in solidarity.
This is for every Cuban in Cuba.
This is for every Cuban in exile.

This is for Cuba..

20 thoughts on “Para todos”

  7. Coño Val me pusiste los pelos de punta. Estoy llorando como una boba aqui en el trabajo, pero no me importa que me pregunten. Les dire la verdad!Que ya viene llegando!
    Gracias!!

  8. Mr. Forbes, you are the man!

    I just watched Mr. Forbes give an interview about Cuba’s future on “Your World with Neil Cavuto.” It was GREAT!

  10. I’m with Michael Mut on this one. This song brings me to tears ever time, now more than ever. I was on 87th and 40th on Monday night celebrating the news and this song came to mind. I was living the end of this song their in front of La Carreta if only for a moment. The emotion was overwhelming. I often ask myself where this “Cuba thing” in me comes from? I was born and raised in Brooklyn USA. Cuba was something my aunts and uncles talked and reminisced about. My music was good old American rock. I didn’t have a Cuban community around me like in Miami. Yet it is burnt in me… the desire to see a free Cuba. How did that happen? I guess I have my own list to add to your list Val.

    This is for my incredible mother who, in the midst of the New York City poverty managed raise with dignity an engineer, a PhD university professor and a lawyer. Not bad for a guajira from Santiago de Cuba.

    This is for my father from Holguin who showed me the pride of hard work.

    This is for my aunt and uncle from Santiago who lost it all to the communist government of Cuba.

    Who then came to this great country and made it all back in spades. I love capitalism.

    This is for my cousin William that I never met because he was shot in the back along with four others trying to cross over to the American base in Guantanamo. His blood is on castro’s head.

    This is for my Tio Tony who didn’t lived to see this day. I still remember his “caracoles.”

    This is for my family still in Cuba putting up with that nightmare. God willing, it’s almost over.

    This is for all those in exile who still wait. God willing, it’s almost over.

  12. Bueno, si eres de la seguridad del Estado, coño, ahora tienes mi dirección. Pero no tengo miedo.

    Aquí va:
    Para mi Abuela, que murió el año pasado sin ver a su hijo, mi padre.

    para mi padre, un excelente doctor cubano que no esta castigado sin entrada al país, no pudo ver a su madre morir.

    para mi madre, que perdió su posición como jefa de departamento de psicología en una escuela medica cubana, su carrera, por sus hijos.

    para mi primo Alfonso, que todavia vive en las entrañas del monstruo.

    Para mis abuelos, que quizás no los vea de nuevo.

    Para el resto de mi familia que todavía sufre el yugo opresor (jaja, qué facil es virarle la ideología al rey del desierto!).

    para mí, que he vivido sin patria y sin bandera por diez años

    y, sobre todo, para mi hermano, que murió sin ver a cuba de nuevo, con diez años de edad. El hermano que fue denegado tratamiento en cuba, el hermano por el que mis padres lo dieron todo. En mi casa hay un dibujo que hizo cuando tenía diez años que decía: Jódete, Fidel!

  14. The Castro regime is in it’s death thros whether or not Castro is himself dead. It is over.

    How it ends is another question. I hope there are people that are planning the formal end in a way that the people of Cuba can go from the old to the new without a great deal of harm.

    A few generals would make the difference. If they would plan a coup at this point, well, when would there be a better time?

    And what of Castro? Who cares?

  15. Val,

    I am Venezuelan myself which arguably makes me feel your pain at a much deeper level than any other non-Cuban.

    I read your post out loud to my wife and my voice trembled and broke, I had to make a few pauses and then decided I would just email it her, I just could not will myself to finish. It surprised me, I never thought I would feel someone else’s pain with such intensity.

    I can only imagine what a 47-year-old nightmare must be like; so far I have gotten glimpse, a sad preview of an announced disaster. I only wish it wont take us half a century of suffering to get our country back.

    My sympathies go with you and those that could never see a free Cuba.

    I am convinced I will see it within my life time.

  17. reading this gave me chills & honestly brought a tear to my eye. & that song… man, thats the anthem to those living in exile.

  18. Lo has dicho muy bien, Val. No se puede añadir mas. My thoughts for those who have been impacted by this bestiality are going through my mind as if a movie on fast forward…I want to see a dead, rotting beast at movie’s end…

  19. This is for my mother who has refused to return to Cuba to see long lost relatives, who has always insisted – de la unica manera que yo volviera es a una Cuba libre, una Cuba sin Fidel, y el dia que eso pasara, yo sere una de las primeras en volver a Santa Rosa/Manaca con Natalie y Robert (sus nietos), de la mano. It brings tears to my eyes to envision this scene, as if she was marching into her town in trimuph. Para ti, mi mami, que el dia llegue pronto.

    For my 97 year old grandfather in Cuba who has been diagnosed with Leukemia – that he may live long enough to finally see my children, hug them, kiss them, just be in their presence.

    I’ve never been a groupie, but when Celia died I cried like a child because her story was the story of many Cubans who never made it to see the day this old mari____ finally kicked the bucket.

  20. Please God let the long suffering exiles see the begining of a new day in the home they were driven from, keep them alive just a little longer so they can have that comfort before they return to you.

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