Another Farewell

February 19, 2024

By Lien Estrada

HAVANA TIMES – My friend graduated in Art History from the University of Oriente. She taught at the journalism school in Holguín. We had met at a literary workshop, and she had always dreamed, like me, of publishing a book of adult fiction. She had been waiting for her parole for about a year. Her brother, who lived in Kentucky, had been processing it for a long time.

Finally, my friend called me to tell me that her papers had arrived. I congratulated her. We agreed to meet at a café the next day to say goodbye, and so we did. When we met, she had already deregistered from the Oficoda (ration card system) and had her tickets purchased.

I asked her how she was feeling, and she said she felt like she was on a roller coaster. She could imagine the next step, but it was impossible for her to specify anything until she landed on the other side, naturally. “It must be complex in the soul to leave definitively,” I observed. That’s when she said, “Lien, in some way, I already left here.”

She told me she had sold her house and was staying in a borrowed house on the beach, that she had resigned from her job, and that she had no family here because they had also left. Added to this was that her life projects were not located in this country. In other words, she hadn’t been living here for a long time. I nodded. “And I think more and more of us believe that the best possible decision at the moment is to leave,” she finished telling me. I agreed again. I often think the circumstances are so adverse that they leave little room for hope. Sloth sweeps us from all sides, and the lack of a sense of belonging invades us tenaciously.

“Nevertheless, don’t allow yourself to fall into deep desolate states,” she tells me. Remember that “those people” want that, to see us like that, depressed, sad, agonizing. Don’t give them the pleasure.

I thank her for the advice. She tells me that all she has left is to take the ration book with her resignation to an address. How happily these offices take a form and liquidate you! We laugh. “You have to be happy too, and happier than them.” “Oh yes, of course,” she replies, “one less chain,” she finishes the thought. We agree.

We say goodbye. I thank her once again for her book donation. It really is a treasure. She replies that it was a pleasure. We promise each other what is always promised in these cases: to keep in touch, and we wish each other the best of luck. She leaves for Miami the day after tomorrow. My friend is a woman who, like so many other people in Cuba, will soon be reunited with her loved ones in other lands. In other words, she will fulfill one of her dreams after so much waiting. And that, after all, is what matters.