CAMAGÜEY.- I hear voices, I see the lights on, there is an unusual bustle at that time. I watch the clock and it´s 1:58 a.m. I wake up frighten, open the door of my bedroom. My sister assaults me: tata, Fidel passed away.
It was the worst news ever. “No Yisse, it can´t be”, that´s the only thing I said contortedly and nervously. itIrn on the TV. It seems true; there is an image of Fidel in the Granma´s landing. I cry. My mom comes. “Yes Yasse, your uncle and your aunt Mirtha called us; they called me from my work, I have to go there”. I return to the bed and I can´t get to sleep. I say as if someone could hear me: he was a good man, I loved him so much.
Then I remember the first time in which I discovered him; the day that he turned forever a fountain of certainty, affection, light, desire. I was around seven years old, when my father scolded me and taught me at the same time about him, he entered deep in my chest, like a neon light. In spite of my shortage of experience, the sudden blackout, the shower that cleaned me, the water couldn´t erase him, on the contrary he was embedded in my soul.
I thought in his speeches. I thought in the repeated appearances on the television. I thought in the journeys. I thought in his fondness to his people. I thought in the emotion of so many people who could touch his hand, see him walk, kiss him and hug him. I thought in my sister and her distress even though she didn´t have him so near as I or other generations had. I thought in my future children, who will have to meet Fidel in the books, in an unreachable lesson, they will meet him because of my passion, or because of their father´s pride by saying that his land Palma Soriano town was the first capital of the Revolution – a city taken and liberated by the EjércitoRebelde (Rebel´s Army) on December 27, 1958 –, and because from there Fidel informed the people through Radio Rebelde about the revolutionary triumph.
I thought in the times I was frighten due to his probable departure. One example is when in February 2008, they reunited us in the Vocational school to read us his resignation letter as president adducing his “critical health conditions”. It was an omen of the news of this 25. It was a shock, a slap, a loss without solace, it was helplessness, consternation, it was not to find the route half the way.
Because I, as many others, thought and think of him immortal, inevitable, human but from another galaxy. And he, though the gases, substances, magnitudes he is made of are undecipherable, he cannot escape either from the flesh and bones. I understood it that way this November 26, and it hurts… Above all, because I refuse to accept that truth as just a treason of the semantics.
I cried that day in 2008, as I cry now. Everything about him has always moved me up to the roots. Just as it happens when I read or see scenes of fathers and sons, without the dramatic burden, those exchanges of affection just move me. That´s why my friend Leydis, who knows me so well, always mention him as “your father Fidel”. I think again, and this thought suffocates me. I couldn´t hold him in my arms, I couldn´t see him close and give him at least a flying kiss (as I dreamed). God, I couldn´t meet my father Fidel.
However, as death do not reach to drain the veins and to take along our people the heat of blood, and though stubbornness of his new mission that will never approve, I continue keeping his frantic figure, with his doctrine, with his resonances. After all, fathers never abandon their children.
Translated by Linet Acuña Quilez