HAVANA TIMES – It’s time to see them in the photos they send on WhatsApp. They smile in some square with a Christmas tree behind their backs. Other times they are sitting at the table with full plates, lit candles, bubbly glasses and colorful decorations. This end of the year, many of us Cubans who remain on the Island experience the December celebrations through those who have emigrated. We breathe a sigh of relief as we conclude that they have been saved from the abyss.
“Tostones or yucca?” a neighbor asks her husband regarding the menu for Christmas Eve. Alone, after the emigration of their two daughters, they try to maintain the tradition and, despite the hardships, will celebrate next Sunday with their family. The problem is that they no longer have relatives in Cuba to invite to dinner, grandchildren to entertain with gifts, or plans to make with their children, in this land, for 2024. They are as alone as the star that shines on the tip of the tree.
“I don’t care, if it’s just you and me,” he responds when faced with the options to eat. Retired and, at the time, a defender of what he now contemptuously calls “this thing,” my neighbor knows that last summer, when he turned 79 and gathered his daughters, his sons-in-law and his grandchildren in a photo, he was also achieving a now impossible snapshot, which will never be repeated. Valencia,
