By Leonardo M. Fernandez Otaño (El Toque)
Dear Mom and Dad:
HAVANA TIMES – Another Christmas has rolled around and everything around me has become a celebration, with lights and Christmas carols. Another New Year’s will soon come, the second one we aren’t together. You know how much I’ve always loved this time of year, decorating the tree, the Nativity scene, cooking for everyone and preparing sweets for the days I meet with friends I haven’t seen in a while. Here in Spain, everything becomes more beautiful (our life was very quiet and simple for many years), but despite the turrons and decorations, the holidays are incomplete without you Mom and Dad and I feel your absence.
I also feel like you are just two of thousands of Cuban parents and grandparents who have had to see their children and grandchildren leave without a return ticket. I look around and the situation of many of my emigre friends is so similar that we console each other. I know that it brings you peace of mind to know that I’m well and safe, but how can we not think about those who are crossing borders in cold Eastern Europe and the Balkans, those who got on a boat out of desperation to cross the human cemetery that is called the Florida Strait or those who walk across Central America heading for the North.
How can we not suffer the suffering of those who have left in search of a better life or have lost themselves in the jungle or those who asked for a better country on July 11, 2021 (I was one of them and I remember that every day), and they are still being held prisoner for political reasons.
The conscience kills an emigre child of Cuba when they go to the supermarket to buy cider a
