Looking Back on the Year in Cuba

Elio Delgado Legon

HAVANA TIMES– When New Year’s comes along, most human beings think back and draw a balance about their experiences and future plans. The young make long term plans, while those who are no longer so young, like myself, can only make plans for the shorter term, as our options begin to run out, like in a game of chess.

A person’s life, see, is very similar to that thinking person’s game: when it opens, we have many possibilities and options ahead of us, and the outcome depends on the attitude we assume before each situation. In other words, the move we make in response to what life deals us will determine the subsequent course of our existence.

After looking back on this year that ends, I’ve come to the conclusion that, when the game opened, in my youth, I made several correct decisions that changed the course of my life. For instance, faced with the option of working with my father in the countryside, as many of my contemporaries did, I decided to continue studying and to look for work in the city, the kind of job that would allow me to study and work at the same time. Though I didn’t earn enough to support my family, I always had my parents’ support.

This decision had important consequences for my life.

Another crossroads I faced – connected, to some extent, to the previous – had to do with politics. There, I had three options: to support Fulgencio Batista’s dictatorship and become an accomplice of a regime that was murdering thousands of young people, to keep away from politics and take no side, which, to a certain extent, also made me an accomplice and, thirdly, to struggle against my country’s ills and to do so to the last consequences.

I chose the third option and do not regret this, for I feel I contributed, however modestly, to the best of my ability, given the limitations life imposed on me, to the triumph of one of the most important revolutions in the history of the West.

Life has continued and I’ve had to make many personal decisions. Some brought me success, others, failure. As far as political ideas are concerned, however, I have been firm in my convictions and support for my country’s revolution, a process which, though not free from error, has had results we can be proud of.

Today, as this chess game of life draws to a close, I am faced with different options, and I choose the one that ought to take me to a final victory: to continue defending my revolution as best I know how. Others have opted to quit the game in search of improvements in their lives. I don’t criticize them, but they should know life will present them with many challenges they will have to face alone from now on.

I came to the end of the game, accompanied by Cuba’s fraternal and revolutionary people. And I have absolutely no doubt that we will overcome.