She was going to be called Gea and she would come to relieve Teo of the burden of being the only child in the house. With her I might once again have prepared pureed malanga, boiled bottles in the night and washed loads of diapers. But thinking better of it, Gea remained the desire of another child that I did not have. I looked ahead twenty years, with the same housing problems of today and with two married children who would bring their spouses to live in our apartment. At first, with the three marriages, we would try to maintain harmony, but the fights would inevitably come.
Our house would be like so many, where several generations live and a suppressed battle takes place every day. The refrigerator would be divided into three zones and the couples would make love quietly, faced with the proximity of the other beds. The grandchildren would come to share the bedroom with the grandparents—in this case my husband and me—and make them feel like they were already a nuisance to the young people. The children would spend a good part of the time in the corridor or in the street, because of the little space available at home. They would become teenagers and look for partners, new potential occupants for the house already bursting at the seams.
If, before the hurricanes Gustav and Ike, my generation and that of Teo had to wait forty years or more to have a house, now the period has surpassed the span of a human life. Together with the roofing tiles and the windows that the winds took, they also sent flying our dreams of having our own roof. Where there are no resources to replace what the victims had and lost, how long will the wait be for those who had nothing.
Without sentimentality Gea has vanished totally from my life, now I know that we will have no space for her.
What a poignant story this is, I can feel your loss way over the water to where I live. Blessings to you Yoani and strength to carry on.
I am moved to tears.
As a Cubanborn, father of three daughters I find this, after 50 years of the so called Revolution, the must vile assault to the souls of Cuban women.
Your writings will live forever .
Keep on writing, Yoani, we are all listening to you!
¡Sigue escribiendo, Yoani, te estamos escuchando todos!
friends from Europe/amigos desde Europa
God is watching all of this. You are not alone.
Yoani,
Your writings are incredibly moving.
In an effort to try to provide assistance to the people of Cuba I would encourage your readers to visit
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/Cubafloodaid/index.html. The site contains a petition to the president and congressional leaders asking for a 90 day suspension of the embargo so that Americans and Cuban Americans can help Cuba deal with the aftermath of hurricanes Gustav and Ike.
May God bless you and your family.
Yoani, as always, very impacting words. Continue forward my friend!
As for Hilda, instead of making so many supplications to the US government, why don’t you focus on impacting the cuban government’s internal blockade? For example, if the US government were to lift the ban on remittances to Cuba for 90 days, how about the cuban government also agree to withhold collecting their 20% tax on those remittances? Right, you know it’s not going to happen. To take a natural disaster and use it as an opportunity for a windfall profit for the cuban government is an obscenity. Think of how many more torturers they can afford. How many more prisons they can build. How many more spies and “chivatos” they can employ! You are so gullible Hildita!