Winner - Voices from Mariel Giveaway
/Cuando salí de Cuba...no lloré.
In 1969, while waiting at the airport for the plane that would take me and my parents to our new life and saying our last goodbyes, I noticed I was the only one who wasn't crying. I was six years old and though my parents had been honest with me when I asked when we would see our family again ("We don't really know, hopefully not too long"), I was certain that, at most, it would be a couple of years.
I didn't understand why my only cousin, who was more of a sister to me, clung to my mother's skirt and sobbed. I suppose that, being a little older, she was less idealistic than I. I didn't know then that she would succumb to Hodgkin's disease and we would never see each other again, or that three of my four grandparents would die without having shared in my small triumphs or great joys.
