Heart of a Cuban: Refugee to American Hero

By NJ Perez

Aligning historical events with family history, Heart of a Cuban: Refugee to American Hero exposes the account of Cubans who refused to be pushed like pawns by evil government leaders and one boy's refusal to give up on the dream his great-grandparents had for a free Cuba. Amid the backdrop of an idyllic childhood spent on his family's farming estates in the tropical hills of Cuba's agricultural region, it is an incredible true journey of one family's escape from Fidel Castro. Andrés was an innocent boy excelling in school and honoring his culture's heritage until the murderous leader came into power, eager to spew his icy talons across the vulnerable country.

Born of two families of heroes who had overthrown Spanish colonial rule half a century before, Andrés was taught how sacrifice was necessary in order to obtain a greater good. When his devout religious foundation seems inadequate at preparing the youngster for dealing with Castro's extreme cruelty, Andrés is forced to adapt and to learn the lessons gleaned from studying his ancestors and the heroes in Cuba's history. After his grandfather's lifeless body crumples before him riddled with bullet holes from Castro's guerrillas, it soon becomes apparent to his family that both his father and he might be next to fall. Escaping could mean immediate death if discovered by Cuban's newly minted Communist soldiers while treachery in the form of dehydration, shark attacks, and storms waited if they left. With the Vietnam War raging in another far-off land due to Communist persuasions, what would lie ahead for Andrés if they did make it to America?

Heart of a Cuban: Refugee to American Hero becomes much more than just a story as the author must answer urgent questions about humanity if Andrés is to find the path necessary to assure his own, and his family's, survival. When the extreme brutality of a world exerts its will on people and invades their peace, nothing more is left for one to do but to gather all their courage in the face of fear and look it straight in the eye. It is the decisions Andrés makes that will make all the difference not only to himself but to all those near and dear to him in family, neighborhood, and among his friends . . . for all time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9781640961265

Book preview

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Heart of a Cuban

Refugee to American Hero

NJ Perez

Copyright © 2018 NJ Perez

All rights reserved

First Edition

Newman Springs Publishing

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2018

ISBN 978-1-64096-125-8 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64096-126-5 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Mom and Papo

for all your love, devotion, and courage.

Prologue

The elderly man sat peering out the window of the airplane in seat 12B as the blue ocean gave away to the green outline of the shore of home. It could not have been a nicer day, and the sunlight glittering off the wing of the jet outside of his window along with the puffy white fair-weather clouds made for a good omen as Andrés and his daughter, Annie, sat in anticipation of a grand return home. But a different system of clouds had been overhead the last time Andrés Perez had seen the shores of this great island. Back then, they were clouds of chaos.

He still could not believe he was finally returning to his homeland almost sixty years after he had left it. His poor papo! He pictured his papo’s face as the jet got closer. He would be smiling now, knowing his son was coming home. Andrés’s papo had died five years before, and this trip back had been all he had ever hoped for these past sixty years. It gave Andrés a mournful feeling, knowing his papo was not along with him. Along with that absence, Andrés wondered who would still be alive and who would have not survived among his family left back here beneath the overcast clouds of doom and chaos. He had no idea.

And yet there was still so much he felt excited, anxious, and even a bit traumatized by as well. Fidel was no longer running the show, as he had been when Andrés had left. But was his younger brother, Raul, really any less of a monster? He doubted it. And only monsters could do what had been done to his family, neighbors, friends, and loved ones in the name of law, order, peace, and … socialism.

Andrés’s father, Antonio Perez, was almost another family casualty at the hands of the murderous Castro regime. And then this story would probably never have been told. And Andrés’s life would forever have been a life without freedom and would instead have been a life of rations, distrust, and fear, as had been the lives of all the loved ones from his past. The very same loved ones he was about to see for the first time in nearly sixty years, whose lives had become encased by a system of government that both terrorized and failed its people, and so they never knew true freedom and true joy, except for those few short decades between wars and dictators.

And this is then the very same period when Andrés had been born and had spent a marvelous and joyful childhood at the homes of his two sets of grandparents. Before the violence came in the form of the dictator who shunned his own people’s wishes and instead propagated lies, deceit, treachery, and violence.

As the jet was approaching the airport, Andrés considered that so many good people had sacrificed their lives over the course of Cuba’s history in hopes that Cuba would one day become and then remain a free state—free from corruption, free from dominance by a foreign country and its government, and free from a dictator who reeked of selfishness and absolute power.

History shows that for an island roughly the length of Utah and Colorado put together while having only about a third of their widths, Cuba has wielded a lot of influence and has been a source of anxiety and temptation for many governments and corporations since Christopher Columbus landed on its shores in 1492. Perhaps it is the island’s closeness to the United States, with its distance being only about ninety miles south of the Florida Keys, which has given rise to the island’s importance and standing in world politics.

Its history is certainly well-known throughout the world and that a mostly peaceful culture of people living together in such a serene environment on a relatively small land mass would one day bring the world to the brink of nuclear nightmare will inform those who might not remember the events leading to the Bay of Pigs that Cuba’s lead role on the world’s stage is a permanently fixed one.

Andrés remembered so much of this history and its consequences as the jet began its descent toward the runway. He had last smelled his island’s opulent fragrance when he was but eleven years of age. And now coming into the nation’s capital of Havana, which was on the island’s northern coast in the western third of the country, he could see the mountainous areas to the west, which then gave way to a large plains area between those and smaller mountain ranges along most of the remaining coastal areas of the island.

It was the western third of the island that, during the course of its recent history, had exercised the majority of Cuba’s military, political, economic, and cultural dominance. It is ironic that during the second war of independence from Spanish rule, when Cubans had finally begun to believe their quest for independence was coming to fruition, was when the foundation was laid, which pitted the Cuban citizens against the wishes of yet another government power.

This was due to a number of factors, including the so-called assistance package sold to the incoming president Gerado Machado y Morales, which allowed US business interests to purchase lands in Cuba to use as they saw fit. With big business behind him, Machado was able to seize power and control over the people of his country and used the support of his friends in the United States to become a Cuban dictator.

And each time Cubans tried to elect their own leaders, the United States tried to derail this independence in order to help shore up those same business interests and would support another dictator instead. The next would be Fulgencio Batista who had two dictatorships along the way. One was in 1934 and the other in 1952.

This continued system of degradation against the will and spirit of the democratic freedom desired by the Cuban people had become a disease in the hierarchy of local and national officials that has uprooted almost every individual and family living on the island and trying desperately to continue to call Cuba home for the next hundred years or so … and counting. With between eleven and twelve million citizens of various racial profiles trying to maintain their homes in Cuba, it is noteworthy that any outside government action that assists and is for the leaders of this island almost always comes at the expense of those citizens.

Nobody was spared—not the Africans and Chinese brought over as indentured servants nor the Europeans coming to the island hoping to do well in business ventures nor those, as in Andrés’s heritage, from the Canary Islands coming to Cuba with their slightly differing Spanish vocabulary and coming to the island because of duty with the Spanish army and for wanting a new go in this exciting land full of opportunity.

Not one of these various cultures would be left unscathed by the brutality of forces greater than the simple love these people had for this country and for one another. How well Andrés had learned this. His family was not unfamiliar with the struggle to maintain honor, dignity, and freedom. Not by a long shot.

The jet finally landed, and he and his daughter Annie took their first steps on Cuban soil—he for the first time in fifty-six years, she for the first time ever. Andrés breathed in the air of his homeland, and he wanted to drop to his knees and kiss the ground beneath his feet. But for now, dignity must be maintained. The island was still not free, and you never knew who was watching. He looked in Annie’s eyes and saw her pride and joy that she was here with her father on this glorious occasion.

She glanced at Andrés and could not hide the broad grin she felt within. Andrés gave her a secure hug mixed with sadness, loss—and yet too—relief; and tears came to them both. Freedom should never have had to come at such a price, Andrés thought to himself as he embraced Annie.

It is true that any government that puts the needs and desires of its leaders before the needs of the citizens it serves is a government that is corrupt and abusive to its citizens. Perhaps it had always been about the promise of the goods and services that Cuba and its people could produce—its sugarcane, avocadoes, mangoes, bananas, tobacco; its beautiful tropical beaches, wide-open areas welcoming development and inhabitation, and each and every other possibility this land had offered.

When all this potential was taken together with the view of great profit margins combined with easy logistics, is this then what had enticed many big corporations to invest in Cuba’s economy and to put a paid leader in Havana that would look after these interests first and foremost? Or maybe it was the country’s vulnerability once it no longer had the protection of a larger governess that persuaded American officials to support dictators instead of a democratic and elected leader?

And then perhaps it was just the oldest of human emotions that took hold of them for no other discernable reason—fear itself. A truly independent Cuba might allow governments and forces unfriendly to the American way of life to take firm hold of a land too close to its borders for comfort. And even a democracy that has a two-party system, so long as those parties are more interested in keeping their own leaders in control and not in cooperating with each other to take care of the needs of the country first, can become mindless.

Probably, it was a little of all these things simmering under the hot and fertile Cuban sun and overtaking common sense. Human history is full of stories about established powers overtaking voids and open land masses. Mankind cannot tolerate what it does not understand. And voids are to be utilized, resourced, and filled with anything at all so long as they do not remain voids.

Despite the Cuban people’s hopes and attempts at getting things right and of finding a true leader of vision and strength, Cuba got Castro, another leader who was funded at the start by US business interests, and once that happened, the government in Cuba soon became ruthless, unapologetic, and violent against the needs and desires of the people it served once again and in spite of its citizens’ outcries and hopes.

As he and his daughter got into their rented car and began the drive down the highway between Havana and his hometown of Bejucal, the excitement Andrés had been feeling ever since getting his plane tickets was now coming to a peak.

In some ways, the island had not changed at all since he had seen it last. In other ways, it was an entirely different country and was vastly unlike the country he had loved and cherished so much as a young boy. The buildings, trees, hills, and fields rolled by as they drove along the highway. The small towns they passed through still seemed to hold the same things he remembered from his earlier days, but there was a difference. Freedom had not come to his fellow patriots. They remained enslaved and ensnarled by a government bent on keeping them subdued and poor. The spirit of his Cuba remained but now was protected by hiding silently in the hearts and minds of those he passed on his way to his hometown.

And what about all his family? Who would be there to welcome Andrés home? What stories would they tell? What fears would they try hiding from him? How could he help them? These were the pressing issues on top of his mind as they drove the ninety-minute drive from Havana back to Bejucal.

*****

Driving down the long and straight highway with his daughter in his homeland once again felt somehow surreal. The trees were larger, the buildings older, and yet there were new buildings as well. Passing citizens walking along the street or riding on their bicycles brought feelings of comradery and unity, although it was as if Andrés could feel the pain they had experienced during all those sullen years.

It was hard not to think about that final terrifying morning of fifty-six years ago with his papo and mami. He pictured himself in the back seat during that long car ride to Havana under cover of darkness—his family breaking a law that carried an immediate death sentence. Andrés did not understand fully at the time why his papo had made the decision, but of course, they had no choice—Castro had brought death and murder back to his family once again after so many years of peace. There would be no more rest if they remained.

Finally arriving in the old neighborhood, he later found it difficult to describe the feeling of reuniting with family after so many years. There was excitement, nervousness, and also unbelievable joy—and all of it against the backdrop of a true sense of the loss of time, experiences, and memories together. He felt an overwhelming desire for his mami, papo, and his grandparents to be with him and his daughter so all of them could be here together with their loved ones once again.

It was by seeing the excitement in his daughter Anne’s eyes and that she would now get to meet the family she had talked with as a child over the telephone that brought Andrés a sense of peace. Anne had mentioned that the conditions on the island were even just a little worse than she had thought they might be. Perhaps she was considering what her life might have been like if she had grown up in Cuba under Castro rather than in the United States. Ultimately, however, Andrés could tell that she was thrilled to be with her papo as he would be reunited to those who had meant so much to him as a child himself.

As they pulled the car to the curb in front of his aunt and uncle’s house, Anne was the first out and would capture each of the following moments on video. As Andrés got out of the car, part of him felt like a child once again coming with his parents to visit and that nothing whatsoever had happened to any of them. When he knocked on the door and waited for an answer, he saw his mami’s beautiful smile and he felt his papo’s firm hand holding his own.

The first to greet them were Uncle Jesus and Aunt Nena, who could not believe they were once again in Andrés’s presence. Then there was Aunt Mercedes in the living room as they came inside the small but clean house. Andrés remembered that she was always the fun person in the family who was ready at all times to find any excuse at all to throw a party. Each and every one of them held Andrés in their embrace for many moments, and somehow now being reunited kept them safe from all the horrors each of them had experienced within their own personal journeys through the hell called the Castro regime. The harder they squeezed Andrés, the further the pain could fly away like it had never happened.

And as they came out back to the patio a moment later, it was Uncle Cirilo himself standing before him, smiling and then embracing Andrés. It was Andrés’s favorite uncle once again holding Andrés in his strong embrace. He remembered his uncle from childhood—big and muscular, riding his horse, and working the farm seven days a week with hardly ever any time off. But smiling and loving his life all the while right next to Aunt Ofelia, who made the best desserts on the entire island.

As they all welcomed and embraced Anne as well, Andrés became aware of a circle now being filled. Up until this point in his life, there had always been the feeling of a broken line that somehow needed completion. He was beginning to believe that being with the surviving members of his family who had remained in Cuba was the resolution that he had sought. All the many things that had never been answered and that for the majority of his adult life felt unfinished were now coming together for the first time.

Maybe seeing the smiles on the faces of family so long ago left behind in a land of chaos and disorder was what he had needed all these years, and now he could move forward once again. He thought he was getting a handle on this newfound feeling of wholeness, and he was trying to put to rest any remaining questions regarding what more he could find. Perhaps that was all there would be.

But a nagging uncertainty remained deep within his soul, and he doubted it would be as easy as that. He thought of the farms themselves and of the history that had extended back for centuries on both sides of his family. And the monuments to his great-grandfathers themselves, the very ones he had played tag around with his friends, what emotions would those bring? And what about the wall of the very school building he attended for years as a small boy—which had become the wall of death used later for unspeakable acts against his family, his friends, and his neighbors? And all the prisons throughout the island used to murder his friends and to house innocent lives for all eternity?

No, he suddenly knew that reconnecting with family he had not seen for more than fifty years that now brought him joy was not all that he would get from this journey back home. There would be other more abrupt and exceedingly painful sights all along the way that would cause Andrés desolation. He realized he would have to face the many unresolved emotions that was making this essential journey back; and now once again seeing all the old sights, which for so many years in early childhood had only brought joy until the tragic turn of events had darkened them so, were now triggering. Which he realized as Anne and he got in the car once again heading for El Cacahual now had the ability to cause Andrés so much pain as they stirred within his soul feelings of desperate rage and intense loss once more. He knew he had to decide quickly whether or not he would succumb to a desperate sense of hopeless despair or do something about it once and for all.

The ride to El Cacahual was quiet and somber, as if both he and Anne were realizing for the first time somehow how all the sacrifices had been for naught. Of course, they were not, but the promise of a better Cuba had never come to fruition. And how many times could they ask why that was so, and what answers other than the obvious ones could be provided? The lessons he had learned in school about all of Cuba’s heroes led to one possible conclusion: betrayal. Cuba had been betrayed not just once but on many occasions by different players.

As they continued their drive onward to the memorials under a picture-perfect sky, with citizens all around going about their somber day-to-day business, the words of Andrés’s famous great-grandfather Col. Juan Delgado—the very one imprinted and engraved on many statues of the hero throughout Cuba—now flooded Andrés’s heart and mind, bringing tears not only to his eyes but down his cheeks and soaking his sleeves as he wiped them away. Because suddenly those words, which he had always thought he had understood completely, now took on a whole new meaning and resonated in ways he had never before felt so strongly: "Those who are Cuban, with dignity and valor, follow me …"

And then he suddenly realized also why his papo had to leave, and it was not because of fear of execution as had been the fate of other family members but because the Cuba his own grandfather, Pedro Perez, his grandfather-in-law Col. Juan Delgado, and his entire family had fought for or had paid the ultimate price to protect was at that time being stripped away first by American business interests and then by a vindictive, paranoid, and soulless dictator.

And the America that had said it would help turned out to only use his country and his countrymen for political and economic advantages … and, when that was not enough, had then opened his country to a madman who could not be deposed of.

Preface

My entire life history can be summed up by the lives of the patriots in my family who came before me. It was their honor, their bravery, and their sacrifices that made my life possible. I cannot even begin to know who to thank and who to give the credit to for this story. Each and every person you will read about in the following pages has lent incredible hope, spirit, and courage in order that I might continue to pursue my life of freedom. And by freedom, I mean that which did not come cheaply but at all costs. And I mean a freedom that is not just a thought or an ideal but a life-giving embodiment to the testimony of honor, morality, and family above all else.

This, therefore, one cannot do alone. And my words here are a quite simple retelling of the stories I have known and have cherished all my life. For in them, there is a truth that surpasses all the suffering, damage, and control one faction of an absolutely extreme regime can exert against the wholesome simplicity of truth and family. But I will do my best to tell this as it was—for the true heroes deserve that much.

One

Forties—Postindependence

As children, they often played together in around their families’ respective farms outside the small town of Bejucal. Born on March 24, 1918, on his family’s farm, La Dificultad, in the Cacahual foothills, Antonio Perez was almost five years older than Merida Delgado, who was born on December 10, 1922, at her family’s farm, El Bosque. When he was ten and she five, they often played in and around the fruit trees of El Bosque and sugarcane crops of La Dificultad. At least once per week, they would journey into town together with one or more of their parents, aunts, uncles, or grandparents to get supplies, catch up on the latest social events or news, and to go to the San Felipe y Santiago de Bejucal Catholic Church to attend Sunday and holiday masses.

They attended school and then helped with chores around their houses and farms, taking care of the chickens, horses, swine, and cows. Partly, it was the history of what each of their grandfathers had done for the sake of a strong and independent Cuba that had been handed down to them that brought both Antonio Perez and Merida Delgado a sense of pride and honor for themselves and for their families as they grew.

Because they lived so close together and both having this sense of calling due to being ancestors of well-regarded heroes—heroes who had stood up and done what was best for their country at such a critical time—and with full knowledge that doing so would put their own lives in severe jeopardy, the two children felt a special bond to each other as they grew.

Young Antonio and Merida would be allowed to sit with Merida’s mami, Asunción, and listen to the Olga and Tony Variety Show on the radio on Saturday evenings at the farmhouse on El Bosque. Oh, how they became so amused watching Asunción singing and laughing to the two performers as she did her knitting.

As young adults, they would go down to the Martí Theater in downtown Bejucal to listen to Miguelito Valdes sing live as he swooned and swayed to his hits. With a tailored mustache, chiseled jawline, a natural charm, and wearing a fine new suit, Antonio could knock most women off their feet. For her part, Merida had a smile that could light up an entire room. Her shoulder-length light brown hair adorned her gentle facial features with just the right amount of trimming, and together with her silky white neck and slightly sloping shoulders, she was a beautiful woman.

They would promenade around Bejucal’s centrally situated park on Saturday nights under the watchful eyes of Asunción; and sometimes Antonio’s mother, Mercedes, would also come along. During those warm and joy-filled evenings, holding hands and sharing their dreams, Merida would rest her head on Antonio’s shoulder as they walked, and they both knew absolutely nothing in the world could go wrong. They knew they would spend the rest of their lives together.

It was probably destiny itself that had the final say in the matter. Even so, Antonio and Merida were in love, and Antonio finally proposed when they were in their midtwenties. Merida happily accepted, and a new bridge between the two families was forged that solidified the deeply rooted patriotic ties that were already firmly linked. And when their first and only child came along a few years later, the bridge became joined for all time.

Andrés Perez was born at the Delgado home in El Bosque with the help of a midwife on July 29, 1950.

Like so many of his family from generations going back more than a hundred years on the island of Cuba, Andrés Perez was born on the family farm El Bosque, just down from the hills of Pedro Perez’s La Dificultad estate, to Antonio and Merida Perez.

His earliest memory is staring at the monuments to his great-grandfathers at the El Cacahual Shrine during a game of hide-and-go-seek with his friends and cousins and then while gazing at their engravings and reading the text below, trying to more fully comprehend what feats they had accomplished that were considered such heroic acts during a war with absolutely evil adversaries. It was not that he did not understand what they had done; it was more that he wanted to appreciate the purity and nature of their characters at the time, and being in the presence of their statues seemed to give him clarity on this that he ordinarily would not access.

He usually pondered this for too long a period of time and would not find a proper hiding spot, and so he would be found very quickly by his friends and then be tagged and thus become the next searcher.

Most days, when the sun came up on the magnificent Cuban land and peeked up over the mango, avocado, plantain, and royal palm trees, Andrés would awake; and he knew it was going to be a glorious day. The air was always fresh, the hills continuously green, and everybody knew and cared for one another in his little area near Bejucal, Cuba. He would spend most of the school year on his mother’s parents’ estate El Bosque—the very same farmhouse Lt. Col. Juan Delgado had been born and had spent his youth.

So many times, his abuela (grandmother) Asunción, the colonel’s daughter with his wife Lydia (and Andrés’s great-grandmother), had promised him that there would be time for the mangoes to be picked. First, there were the chores—getting cleaned up, keeping his clothes and belongings tidy, and helping in the barn. But living here on this farm was pure heaven for a boy such as Andrés.

He and his best friend, Miguel, would always make the rounds in and between all the fields of both the farms, the paths through the woods, the roads of his hometown Bejucal, the train station, and the path to the shrine where the memorials to his great-grandfathers, Pedro and Juan, as well those to Maceo and Toro, among other heroes, had been built up in the Cacahual Hills on the Perez farmland. As boys, he and his friends and cousins would make dirt paths in the grass from their constant travels in and between the various tombstones and memorials as they played tag and hide-and-go-seek. His families’ two farms were only about twenty minutes apart from each other, and many days, the children would travel back and forth between the two.

Andrés and his friends could literally get lost for the entire day if they did not pay close attention to the time. The hills seemed to go on for miles with their rows of the various fruit trees, which were everywhere waiting to be explored with their fruit almost always waiting to be picked and enjoyed. And then also were the fields of sugarcane up on the hilltop at La Dificultad estate.

His earliest memories always took him back to his father, his papo. Andrés’s papo Antonio was the best man he would ever know. He had a combination of strength and courage, combined with a gentle tenderness and loyalty toward all in his family and those of his friends and neighbors that he considered as family. He could not tolerate selfishness or cruelty in anybody, and he instilled this value in all the children that fell beneath his umbrella of caretaking—Andrés, his cousins, his friends, and his neighbors.

As he grew and came to understand his papo, Andrés realized that Antonio had great love, patience, and sympathy, mixed with just the right amount of consistent discipline—but never a discipline that became overbearing. Andrés would wait for him each evening in the living room to come from his rounds in town and on the farm, and Andrés would rush out to greet him. He would follow Papo to his room and watch him get changed from the work clothes to his evening attire. Papo would let Andrés examine each of the items that came out of his pockets. To Andrés, these were prizes and treasures that were both useful and were must-haves for their value, usefulness, and novelty.

Antonio used to put his cufflinks in a box on the dressing room table, and these were treasures of the highest order. They must contain pure gold and diamonds, Andrés would think to himself as he turned them over in his hand, examining each of their crevices and nooks. Andrés would describe to the other kids how his papo had unlimited treasures. He would especially keep a watchful eye each evening on the silver watch that his papo wore around his wrist. To the boy, it was perfect! It was a beautiful, glistening, and stylish band of silver metal that served a great purpose with its handsome face and long black arms.

Although he was well-behaved, Andrés was a boy like all others and had his moments of failing to maintain proper self-control and with following all the rules at home.

An early incident that prompted discipline for the boy came when Mami and Papo were in Havana. Andrés was a little more than four years old, and during a session of play with one of his cousins out in the front yard of his grandparents’ home on the El Bosque estate, he grew angry at this cousin for one reason or another as little children can often do, and so Andrés took a bite out of her arm.

Andrés ran from the front yard, conscious that he had committed a crime of some severe sort. He immediately ran into the kitchen, got some bread from on top of the counter, and then crawled beneath the kitchen table.

He heard his grandmother, his abuela Asunción, enter the kitchen from a back room and thought she might have seen him but that she probably did not know about his biting of his cousin’s arm. A minute or two later, his abuelo (grandfather) Alberto, who usually never punished anybody came marching into the kitchen. Andrés considered that he must have finally committed a crime that was punishable. His abuelo came into the kitchen and encountered his abuela, and he asked her where Andrés was.

Abuela did not want to be an informer, and at first, she did not say where Andrés was. But looking into her husband’s eyes and seeing such a stern expression there, her conscious must have bothered her, and she cast a quick look under the table. Abuelo immediately dropped on all fours and went to get Andrés. Andrés threw the bread at Abuelo, and his advantage was that he could stand up beneath the table, which he did, and he began running out toward the back door of the house. But Abuelo caught him as he got to the door.

The punishment fit the crime. Andrés was made to stay inside all day after apologizing to his cousin, and then he had to sweep the entire house.

But nobody enjoyed life like his papo. His father loved cigars but did not drink at all. He loved music and did his best when he danced. He loved movies, and he loved dominoes, and he was a wiz at adding up the number of cards on any playing table in an instant. But more importantly than all that was that Andrés watched Papo perform his duties as the head of a household like nobody else ever could. And certainly like nobody Andrés had ever met. Throughout Andrés’s life, his papo’s enjoyment of life and his performance of the duties as head of household remained a constant example and model to look up to and to embrace. He was a slightly built but powerful man, and he always made it his priority to take care of anyone who needed help or needed protection.

And along with his papo’s fine example, it was the history of his family that brought little Andrés a sense of honor in each of his daily routines. For it was not just on one side but both sides of his family that it had derived. His great-grandfathers Pedro Perez and Lt. Col. Juan Delgado were regarded as national heroes across the country. Their acts were seen as having freed the Cuban people from colonial imperial rule and giving the nation its first true taste of independence. These were the heroes who had stood up and done that which is credited with liberation for Cubans across the island and which had proven their loyalty even when their own lives and the lives of their cherished brethren and children were in severe jeopardy.

Like with most of us, it started at the age of seven that Andrés would participate in the activities and educational experiences regarding life that created the memories to last a lifetime. And with so much occurring in his families, his community, at school, and on the farms, and later with his very country, Andrés’s childhood was perhaps just that much richer than the childhoods that most of us traverse. What he had witnessed and experienced would go well beyond anyone’s definition of a normal childhood. That he had endured and prevailed and even excelled on many levels is a testimony to his strength of character.

They say heroes are born every day. It was the character and principles of many of Andrés’s ancestors that helped shape and fertilize Andrés’s ideology and values—and his very character became what it is now only because those who came before him made the ultimate sacrifice.

Two

Andrés awoke, threw the white sheet off his body, and put his feet to the floor. Already, sunbeams were shooting through the front window onto his bed, and he was hot. He pushed a mosquito net out of the way and pulled on his shorts.

He suddenly had a memory from last night that now disturbed him somewhat. His papo and mami had come into his room soon after he had gone to bed. They both hugged him closely and had him say his prayers with them again as his head rested on his thin pillow. He smiled warmly up to them and was a bit concerned because he could tell his mami’s smile was a bit frailer than it used to be. His papo had been dressed in his fine suit and tie, black leather shoes, and had been wearing his silver watch. His mami had on a long white dress with the ruffles at the bottom and a broad blue belt around her waist and had been wearing her medium black high-heel shoes.

As he had looked deeply into first his mother’s and then his father’s eyes, Andrés could tell they would soon be telling him something of importance. They each held one of his hands, and he felt the strength in his papo’s palm and in each of his fingers. Andrés clenched back tightly with both his hands. However, his mami’s hand was a bit cool, and although she held his firmly, he could feel the absence of her customary strength. His father looked him in the eyes and soon told him that they would have to leave later in the evening for Havana.

Andrés felt sadness and concern as he stood up from his bed because his papo Antonio had to drive his mami Merida into Havana last night for further medical treatment for his mother. Merida was becoming unusually weak lately, and her doctors had been taking a closer look at her pituitary glands in particular to see if there was something there that needed to be addressed.

Also, there had been some medical issues from the past concerning her heart that were complicating a more comprehensive diagnosis and therefore a singular course of treatment for her medical concerns. Unfortunately, the medical care in Bejucal was not as good as it was in the big city, and most times when there were issues needing more thorough diagnosis, the local folks travelled to the hospitals in Havana for their healthcare treatment.

Andrés’s father Antonio was a handsome man with a tailored mustache and medium build who mostly dressed in suit and tie for his business trips and when walking in and around town. A thin and distinguished face with sharp jawline and long dark eyebrows, neatly cropped brown hair, and the hint of dimples when he smiled, Antonio was the son of Pedrito Perez, who himself was the middle child of Cuban hero Pedro Perez of the Pact of Silence. Business minded and hardworking, Antonio also had a healthy sense of humor and kept abreast of all the latest news about politics and social affairs. He felt honor bound to help neighbors and friends when he could and to be an advocate for improving his family’s and his friends’ way of life whenever he had the opportunity.

Merida Perez was a beautiful woman with a broad smile, a spitfire personality, russet-colored hair with a slight curl kept to her shoulders, and slender figure. Throughout most of her marriage, Merida did her best to keep her family’s interests on the top of her list of priorities. Unfortunately for Andrés and her family, Merida’s illness interfered somewhat with her duties. And so she had learned to depend upon Antonio, who loved her so and did whatever was necessary to get his wife the medical attention that she required. Daughter to Alberto and Asunción, Merida was the granddaughter of Col. Juan Delgado. Asunción was the colonel’s daughter and was only four years old when her father Juan was killed in battle.

Andrés walked about his bedroom and thought of his mami’s and his papo’s gentle and loving looks back at him last night as they had left his room and then departed for Havana. How well they had loved and trusted one each other and how beautiful they looked when they were together. He trusted his papo and so was able to somewhat squelch his concern for his mami’s well-being due the fact that he knew his papo would do anything necessary in order to obtain the best care for his mami and thus get her back into her right spirit as soon as possible.

As he hung up a white dress shirt that he had drooped over his bedpost last night after having only worn it for an hour or so yesterday and not having gotten it dirty at all nor sweating in it, he realized that the house was filled with an absolutely luxurious aroma. He quickly made his bed by throwing the sheets up and folding the edge down, then tucking its end beneath the mattress. He threw on a white T-shirt and used his index finger to slip on his red Keds sneakers. Andrés then rounded the corner of the hallway leading from his bedroom into the kitchen and saw that his abuela Asunción was frying some eggs and bacon fat on the woodburning stove. The small boy instantly felt hunger pains invading the pit of his stomach, and he could not wait to have some of the eggs and bacon.

He came to the table, and sitting upon the stool there, his already hardy appetite grew to an urgent demand as he saw the golden biscuits that she had already baked sitting in a wooden bowl on top of the dining table just waiting to be devoured. He looked at his abuela and noticed how worn her white cooking apron was becoming. Beneath it, she had on her beige blouse and brown skirt. Andrés saw the lovely multicolored wildflowers in a vase on an end table in the hallway. Abuela must have just picked those earlier in the morning. Her knitting was on a chair beside them.

Andrés’s maternal grandmother, his abuela Asunción, was a short woman with olive skin who wore her hair in a bun and enjoyed cooking, visits with friends and neighbors, and knitting. She was a great cook, and being quite religious, she was a stickler for manners. Always insisting that Andrés and his cousins were to give respectful greetings to all their elders using sir and ma’am, one of her favorite spoken edicts was You need to have manners so people won’t think you were raised in a barn! She was also the family historian among a family of dedicated patriots, and she was arguably the person whose patriotism was most extreme. She loved the farm and farmhouse of El Bosque that was situated just on the outskirts of Bejucal, and that was in her family for three generations before her.

Andrés knew his grandpa, his abuelo Alberto, was already out in the barn feeding the chickens, pigs, cows, and horses. Did you sleep all right last night, my shu-shu? his abuela Asunción asked Andrés as she used a spatula to move around the eggs cooking in the frying pan.

Yes, Abuela, I did, Andrés replied.

She came over from the stove and planted a firm kiss on top of his head, making him smile. Did you make your bed?

He smiled up at her. Yes, ma’am. She smiled at him, shuffled his uncombed hair, and then went back to the stove.

It was Saturday, and during the school year, Saturdays were just about the only free day for Andrés. After chores, he had practically the entire day to spend with friends.

He waited patiently for Abuela to finish cooking and then plate the eggs and bacon. Sometimes he would dare to take a biscuit from the wooden bowl before she had finished. If she caught him, she would smile and then say, Couldn’t you just wait one or two minutes more? before pinching his cheek. Sometimes she would forget her own strength, and he would have to pull his face away for the fear that the squeeze might leave a lasting moment of the painful pinching sting on his tender skin.

Andrés was a small-framed, thin, loving, and handsome boy with large brown eyes, tousled light brown hair, and an easy smile. His inherent values and natural honor had started in his genes and then had been honed and strengthened by the courage and valor that each of his great-grandfathers had displayed in his country’s fight for independence. So much history from his earliest memories had been shared with him through his relatives’ retellings of the stories of both his families’ roles in Cuba’s independence and then fortified and magnified as he had learned to read about both his great-grandfathers Pedro Perez and Juan Delgado in his school history books and on the plaques of all the memorials to his two great-grandfathers that had been built and cherished throughout his homeland.

As a boy, Andrés was not so much timid as he was one who had no patience for any unnecessary violence, which he witnessed in the world as it commonly occurred with childhood friends, classmates, and in his elders’ discussions about business and politics. Although it seemed that people using others in power struggles were everywhere around him, he had no use for this sort of behaviors. Instead, he customarily faced life while adhering to both a deeper sense of conscience and a natural curiosity for learning about the people, plants, and animals in the land around him, as well as his love for that land itself. His respect and affection for, along with his loyalty to, his family led him along the way in life. As in all societies, sometimes this was and sometimes this was not enough.

Finally, Abuela brought over a plate of two eggs and bacon for Andrés. He immediately took a biscuit from the bowl, broke it in half, and dipped one piece into the center of one of the egg yolks. The creamy orange yolk stuck to the crevices of the biscuit, and Andrés popped it into his mouth and relished the flavor of hot biscuit mixing with the yolk as he chewed. He then ripped a piece of the bacon in two and put a large fatty end into his mouth. Heaven, he thought to himself as he smiled.

It is good? Abuela asked. She already knew how much he was enjoying it because as she sat down beside him with her own plate, she saw his formidable grin.

Yes, ma’am, it is very good! He had already decided he would have two biscuits this morning. From off in the distance, Andrés heard the cry and the clanking of the bell, indicating the firewood cart was making the rounds in his neighborhood.

Andrés’s maternal grandparents’ house had a woodburning stove in the kitchen where most of the food would be prepared and cooked, and so a constant supply of firewood was essential. The house itself was situated on a one-hundred-sixty-acre farm loaded with avocado, mango, and plantain trees. The town of Bejucal was about six blocks to the east of their house, and Andrés’s aunts, uncles, and cousins all lived in and around the farm. Andrés was the oldest of his cousins. His cousin Ramon, who was his mother’s sister Tina’s son, was one of his closest playmates and was about one year younger than Andrés.

A wood structure at first, the house on El Bosque had a porch in front, and immediately to the right of the front entrance, adjacent to the porch, was Andrés’s bedroom. The house was long and somewhat narrow, and the living room was across the hall from the front bedroom, and then came two more bedrooms leading straight back to the