This is a photo of my family in Cuba in 1959. My dad, Radamès, is the little cutie on the far right. His namesake and my grandfather is on the far left.
Yesterday, with the outpouring of love for the role our dads have played in our lives and all that’s been going on presently, it feels relevant to share an excerpt from an article my sister wrote about my family’s journey to the U.S. “On January 1, 1959, Cuba changed forever. Fidel Castro, along with his brother Raúl and the Argentinian reactionary Che Guevara, led a revolution to overthrow the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. Castro and company promised freedom and equality under their communist rule, but instead one bad government replaced another, with fear, violence, and corruption ruling the day. The changes that needed to happen to bring justice and equality to Cuba’s people did not come, and time would show that the Castro regime destroyed much of the good of the island while keeping the rest for personal gain for its leaders.
In the upheaval of the Revolution, there were many that stood against Castro. These counter-revolutionaries, as they were called, fought as hard as they could to keep Castro from succeeding in his plans for Cuba, and many were wounded for killed in the effort. My grandparents were not in favor of Castro, but they were private in their dissent, in order to protect their family. One day, my grandfather encountered nuns from a local parish. They made a request of the good doctor—they were caring for some men, some counter-revolutionaries, who were wounded and needed medical attention. Would he help them?
The risk of helping these wounded men was very real; the Castro government was merciless on those thought or found to be traitors. For my grandfather, however, it was a matter of duty. The Hippocratic oath was one he took seriously: ‘Into whatsoever houses I enter, I will enter to help the sick, and I will abstain from all intentional wrongdoing and harm.’ Years later, one of my fondest memories is of him singing the words of Matthew 25 to me: ‘Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that’s what you do unto me!’ To deny these wounded Cubans the medical help they needed...
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