The heart of a country

When you believe that you answered the most difficult questions, she asks another one, the most terrible: “Mom, what is there in that little box?” “The heart of a country, my girl”. I answered with immense desire of crying. She comes closer and embraces me. She knows that something bad happens, because the parents are supposed not to cry.

I did not talk more, but I wanted to say there goes Fidel, those are his ashes, that is his flag and those his people; that his family is destroyed; that Dalia’s face, his wife, is the face of the deepest pain; and that Raúl’s martial greeting at leave-taking him is the commitment in pure state.

I wanted to explain to her that the Commander in Chief of the Revolution returns to Santiago de Cuba by the very same spinal column of the nation, that returns victorious, escorted by doves again; I wanted to announce her that he will join Martí, Maceo, Céspedes, and his very dear Frank.

I wanted to tell her that Cuba has been crying for four days, with flags at half-mast and a deafening silence; that his sons refuse to say goodbye to him and assume him eternal; that more than a million of thankful people gathered at the Revolution Square, Fidel’s Square. There, where he convoked us so many times. I wanted to give her details of the previous night when she slept quietly and the Square became an immense Tower of Babel, where we listened “Thanks Fidel!” In all the languages.

I would have wanted to talk to her about her island, this little blessed island that gave birth to colossal men like Martí and Fidel, men who devoted themselves completely to their homeland, placed this country in the Latin American and worldwide orbit, that loved an ideal and went to fight for it, that suffered every kind of insults, that were and are loved.

I wanted to tell her that she lives in an immense country, that she is part of a beautiful people, a thankful people that cries and becomes more assured, that does not forget, that makes good its promises and will keep on doing that, like stubborn Granma, outliving all the waves.

I wanted to talk to her about my confidence, I feel sure Fidel’s death is an impulse, it is call to keep on constructing what is extraordinary, a joining all of us in a hug apart from the differences, to concentrate on what really cares and decides.

I wanted to tell her a lot of things that I have left in pause till she accumulates more years. For now, she knows that a heart keeps on going over Cuba from end to end. And, a five-year-old girl knows well that without heart life impossible, that beats in the middle of the chest, that just putting your hand you feel it, and that the best comes from it. She will not know what a human being’s ashes are, but she knows that her country continues to be alive.