Worms No More

"A butterfly is the promise that we can't stay worms forever."

I heard the news from Alex, my youngest son. He knew this was a good enough reason to wake me up at 1 am. "Mom, wake up, Fidel Castro died." I asked him, "are you sure it's for real?" After all, his death has been announced multiple times in the last decade and every time it's been a false rumor... until now. The worst dictator of the twentieth century is finally dead.

I was born during his regime and left Cuba seven years later. This short time was enough to permanently imprint in my mind what communism can do to a country. We lived in fear. We lived in poverty. We lived without freedom. Even though we lacked the most basic foods, it was the lack of freedom that impacted me the most. And of course, I didn't realize this until I actually left to a free country and I grew up.

My grandmother used to tell me stories of the Cuba I never knew, the free Cuba that my parents and grandparents always cherished. And she would tell me that once I left, I would be able to enjoy that freedom. I would be able to eat cream cheese, my favorite snack, daily and not just once a year. I would be able to play with lots of toys and not just the few toys that they had to struggle to obtain once a year. I would be able to go to church and worship without fear. I would be able to prepare for my first Communion without hiding in a basement. I would be able to travel to other countries freely. I would be able to talk outloud about any subject freely. I would be able to use my imagination and write about anything my heart desired freely. I would be able to attend any school my parents chose for me, whether private, religious or public. In other words, I would have choices and I would be free to make my own decisions, something that in Cuba was no longer possible.

When my parents decided to leave Cuba in search of freedom, my father was fired from his job at the bank and sent to work in a labor camp cutting sugar cane and doing heavy labor. This was the punishment given to the "gusanos" (worms) that were not in agreement with the Communist government and who applied for a visa to leave. The punishment did not recriminate. It was handed out to both men and women, unless the woman had a child under five years old. That's what saved my mom from two years of harsh agricultural labor. But she still had her share of heartache by being repudiated for her decision both by neighbors and co-workers.

Even myself, at the young age of seven, was punished for my parents' decision to leave the country. I remember the day that my second grade teacher announced to the entire class, "I have a prize for just one student, who wants it?" Of course, the entire class raised their hand, "Me, me, me." I was the lucky one. She gave me an envelope and told me to give it to my mom. The so-called "prize" was a letter that said that the following day I had to report to a new school in a different neighborhood. Oh, what a wonderful prize I won. Just a few weeks after starting second grade, I was taken away from the only school I had ever attended, and from my classmates, the friends I knew since kindergarten. When I gave the envelope to my mom, I was very excited: "Mami, they gave out a prize in school and I was the only one that got it." The excitement only lasted until my mom read the note and I saw tears in her eyes. When my mom went to my school the following day and begged them to leave me there, that we would be leaving the country soon, they laughed at her. They were punishing me because according to them we were all just a bunch of worms.

I recall the day we left with complete clarity. When we arrived at the airport, we had to enter a fishbowl. That's where they would place all the "worms" that were leaving. My grandmother would place her hand on one side of the glass and I would place mine on the other side. I didn't understand why she couldn't be inside with us. We carried nothing with us except the clothing we wore and a doll I was allowed to take with me. I remember my coat was dark green. My grandmother made it for me and I cherished it long after I had outgrown it because it was the only reminder I had of her until she and my grandfather joined us two years later.

When we walked to the plane, my mom told me, "do not look back, do not turn around or they will take away your doll." What she really meant to say was, "they won't allow us to leave if any of us look back." I could hear all four of my grandparents calling our names, but I cherished that doll, "Marina," with all my heart, and I believed my mom. I had already seen the "bad people" remove its head to make sure my parents were not hiding anything inside it. Little did I know that day would be the last day that I would see my paternal grandfather, and that it would take twenty years for me to see my paternal grandmother again when she came to visit me in Miami for a short visit.

We arrived in Madrid, Spain, on a very cold November day. I had never experienced that brutal cold weather in my life, but the wool coat that my grandmother made for me kept me warm. We didn't have any family in Madrid. A friend of my grandmother's waited for us at the airport. She took us to a "pension," a sort of cheap hotel where we had a room but where we had to share a bathroom and a kitchen with everyone else. My memories of this place are limited because I lived there for less than two months. My parents knew this was no place for me so 45 days after our arrival, they sent me to live at my grandmother's sister's house in La Coruña, a town in the northwest corner of Spain. But I do remember two things: the small balcony that became our refrigerator because it was so cold outside that the milk and the yogurt would get icy during the night, and my parents scrubbing the common kitchen because whomever used it last had to clean it and they were usually the last ones because they found work right away, so they would get back pretty late and therefore finish cooking way after everyone else. I also remember staying there by myself because even though they found work right away, they didn't find a school that they considered suitable for me. The public school nearby was attended by a very bad "elemento," (bad apples). They couldn't afford private school at this time and they felt it was safer for me to stay alone in "la pension" than for me to attend the public school. And thus the reason why they made the decision to separate from me for a short period of time by sending me to live with my great-aunt.

All these memories have rushed to my mind this weekend, like a river running wild through my brain. All the stories I grew up with, told over and over again by my grandparents and by my parents who wanted to make sure that I did not forget my heritage. Even though I lived just seven years in Cuba, that heritage is as much a part of me as "frijoles negros" (black beans) and "pastelitos de guayaba" (guava pastries) is a part of Cuba. And I have passed on that heritage to my children that were born in the United States of America, the land that welcomed us, because for us, Spain was just a stepping stone until we reached our final destination.

Therefore, even though I feel it's wrong to celebrate the death of a human being, I have no regrets that when Alex woke me up to break the news, I felt joy instead of sadness. I wanted to share this joy with my dad and my grandparents, but they were no longer just a phone call away. But I knew they would be celebrating in heaven, the way we would celebrate the following day here on earth. I got to celebrate with my mom, with my husband, and with my children, in a way that the Cubans that are still living inside the island cannot celebrate. We were once considered worms but we glowed from within. They were never able to extinguish that light. And today, we celebrate like the butterflies that we became because we live in a free country. We are worms no more.