A Woman Left All Alone

By Pedro Pablo Morejon

Cuban women. Photo: Juan Suarez

HAVANA TIMES – Her husband left her back in 1994. That night, Fidel Castro gave the green light to anyone who wanted to leave Cuba. He did so in front of TV cameras and in view of the crisis that ensued after the “13 de marzo” tugboat was sunk, boats stolen and the famous Maleconazo unrest.

Her husband left with a promise: he would work to bring her and the children to him and reunite. However, time passed by, their relationship became weaker and he ended up making a new life, forgetting everything else.

She was left with the kids, juggling everything in order to survive. An old-fashioned, traditional woman, she was never with another man so as not “to set a bad example for her children” until the eldest grew up, graduated in Law, took a work contract in Ecuador and traveled to the United States a year later, where he makes a living as a truck driver, transporting goods all over the USA.

I saw this son in 2018. He had come back to visit and we started talking and reminiscing about our time together as colleagues when we both worked at a law firm. He told me his work was very hard, that it was suited for men without a family because they have very little free time, spending nights in motels, almost always outside the home, but he does earn a lot doing this.

I was jealous but I knew how to disguise it, because only God knows that I keep on fantasizing about losing myself on one of these US highways, driving an iron monster machine at over 100 km per hour, breathing in freedom and with a motel waiting for me every night, as well as a woman to seduce. With nothing to worry about. Just living…

His mother recently told me that the youngest, the only one who had stayed in Cuba, had now left for Nicaragua. He would travel on from there to Miami, where the eldest son was waiting for him. She didn’t give me too many details but I can imagine the dark situation the risky journey must entail.

Fear and concern are written all over her exhausted face, plowed with wrinkles that have cropped up year after year with so much suffering and a solitude that now engulfs her. 

She understands that she should not cut her son’s dreams short, that he has a right to live in other places that are less harsh and brutal than Cuba.  Places where existence is not just basic -such as eating or getting dressed-, and accepting everything with resignation.

However, she knows that she is all alone now, completely alone in the middle of nothing, and that not even a dollar account can make up for the decline that is her life.

Read more from the diary of Pedro Pablo Morejon.

Pedro Morejón

I am a man who fights for his goals, who assumes the consequences of his actions, who does not stop at obstacles. I could say that adversity has always been an inseparable companion, I have never had anything easy, but in some sense, it has benefited my character. I value what is in disuse, such as honesty, justice, honor. For a long time, I was tied to ideas and false paradigms that suffocated me, but little by little I managed to free myself and grow by myself. Today I am the one who dictates my morale, and I defend my freedom against wind and tide. I also build that freedom by writing, because being a writer defines me.

2 thoughts on “A Woman Left All Alone”

  • This is what happens when ideology takes over… People are left in pain whitout any chance at a better future. The US also fucks up with no possible éducation, pricey hospital and shootings. Canada, Australia, new zealand and northern europeans countries is truly the only free places in the world. Free education, healthcare, and opportunities.

  • Once both sons are settled in the US and able to do so, they should begin the process to bring their mother to live in the US. Cuba is no place to grow old and alone unless you have the money to do so comfortably.

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