Published May 13, 2007
Havana · For Adelfa, every Mother's Day is the same. Her son in New York
will either call her one day before or one day after. So it goes, too,
with her daughter in Orlando.
"It's true the phone lines are too congested," said Adelfa, 60, who
asked that her full name not be used. "But I also think they prefer to
call before or after because they're so sad about not being with me. My
son told me, `I can't call you on Mother's Day because I have too much
work. I'll call you Monday.' But I know. I'm his mother."
For Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits, holidays such as
Mother's Day illustrate the human cost of an ever-widening political
divide. Although just 90 miles apart, the United States and Cuba never
seem more distant than on occasions when families traditionally get
together.
"On Mother's Day, I don't even think about seeing them," said Adelfa, a
retired chemical engineer who lives alone on the outskirts of the Cuban
capital. "Forget it. Don't even mention it. That's a day for families.
There are dinners and gifts and cards. For me, it's very sad."
In 1998, Adelfa's 33-year-old daughter, Adelheid, and her daughter's
husband, Marlon, moved to Florida after their names were selected in the
annual visa lottery. They borrowed money and sold everything they owned
to scrounge up the $4,000 they needed for the process, Adelfa said.
Adelheid's aunt, who left Cuba in the 1980 Mariel boatlift, was the visa
sponsor. The aunt died less than a year before her niece arrived in the
United States.
When Adelheid and her husband left for the United States, Adelfa's other
child, Arturo, was 14. He became obsessed with joining his only sister
abroad. His mother said his strong desire to leave attracted the
attention of local authorities. The president of the local Committee for
the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), a neighborhood watch group, paid
Arturo a visit.
"My son sat there and told the president of the CDR that all he wanted
to do was leave," Adelfa recalled. "He was brave. But it scared me. He
was so desperate. I offered to get him help, a psychologist or
something. He said, `The only help I need is a raft with a motor. I'd
rather die trying to leave than to stay in Cuba.'"
In 2005, Arturo told his mother that he was leaving legally for Costa
Rica. She never saw the paperwork. He sold all his belongings along with
some of her's, Adelfa said. There were two failed attempts to leave the
island on makeshift rafts. The first landed her son in a Cuban jail for
three days. In November of that year, Arturo and 17 other Cubans reached
the beaches of Cancun on a makeshift boat.
Arturo's sister helped secure his release from a Mexican detention
center after three months, said Adelfa, who marked every day of her
son's imprisonment with a line on a piece of paper. He then illegally
crossed the border with the United States. Because he is Cuban, Arturo
was allowed to remain in the United States. His sister paid for his bus
ticket to Florida.
Pamela Falk, a law professor at the City University of New York, said
the heartbreak of the Cuba-U.S. relationship is the divided family. The
decades-old trade embargo against Cuba coupled with more recent travel
restrictions have hurt only families, she said. Especially on holidays.
Particularly on Mother's Day.
"Because it's been over four decades, the parents are aging more in Cuba
and children want to see them and say goodbye," Falk said. "The embargo
has made it much harder for Cuban Americans to visit relatives,
particularly in emergencies. That has been a strain and a very sad
moment for a lot of families."
Adelfa said she planned to spend Mother's Day at home with relatives,
poring over photos of her son and daughter in the United States. She
proudly pointed to a picture taped to the refrigerator of her daughter's
two-year-old son, Matthew, who was born in Florida. The grandson she has
yet to meet is wearing a t-shirt with the words, "All-American Baby."
"In Cuba, you can live with the scarcity of food and medicine and
certain material things," she said. "But being apart from your children,
that's the hardest part. I would love to visit them and come back.
That's my wish for Mother's Day -- to see them."
Ray Sánchez can be reached at rlsanchez@sun-sentinel.com.
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