Roberto Fernández Retamar: Of Many

July 30, 2019

Eight days ago he died, and not even twenty-four hours have passed since I scattered his ashes in the sea on July 27th, the very day my parents committed to each other for life, almost seventy years ago, coinciding with my mother's birthday.

After the shock of seeing how he kissed my hand, and immediately afterward stopped breathing after accompanying him as best I could during his final months, (he had warned me: "you will have the privilege of seeing me die"), and after he left me countless instructions for his last book, working until the final moment with the rigor and meticulousness that characterized him, countless expressions of condolences began arriving through different channels. With the selfishness of a mother ("he was still my father, but was already becoming my son"), I claimed the pain for myself alone.

It was with the slow passage of time that I began to suspect that the man who was leaving us on this side of the moon was not mine alone, nor his three grandchildren's, nor his son-in-law's, nor his surviving brother's, but belonged to so many more.

Before explaining this feeling of shared grief, I must publicly express my gratitude to all the people who, in one way or another, with emotional support or practical help, with words of encouragement or attending to even the smallest detail that was needed, helped make my father's transition to his final destination less difficult. Mentioning their names would be impolite: they know, and perhaps it would not please them for me to make their participation publicly known. Nevertheless, I feel a moral duty to say that I was not alone, that my father was cherished by friendships as old as he was, cared for by doctors who came at my call regardless of time or difficulty, by my sisters and brothers of affection, who supported me until the very last moment, when my strength threatened to fail.

There were those who came with pots of ice cream, a colleague took it upon herself to make him delicious flans, others would suddenly appear with chocolate bars, distant liquors arrived, Cuban medicines and those from overseas, they gave him bottled juices, ointments, patches, revitalizing essences, a book of his published in Spain, the most recent issues of Casa magazine (both brought directly from the airport to his bed): many friends cooperated with amazing speed, to give the poet his final pleasure, so he would leave knowing he was loved and respected.

Loved to the hilt, he felt that he was leaving us, demanding that we fulfill what was the fundamental premise of his existence: to work. He dictated letters to me, made me promise that I would not neglect any detail of his book, which he knew would be posthumous, whose title I repeated to him many times so he would be sure of my understanding. "Alternativas de Ariel" will come out as you want it, Dad, rest easy, I told him each time he questioned me with just a look. His close collaborators would approach his bed, and if his breath allowed it, they would have intense conversations, which would leave him exhausted but happy.

There was never an excuse, no one tried to evade a request of his: quite the contrary, all his dear colleagues of so many years longed to come to our house, to accompany him, to embrace him. No one wanted to let him go. We could not accept that the princely and wise man, the most just leader, the professor, the poet, the immense essayist, was slowly fading away.

To all the faithful who believed in the miracle of eternity, but who on the earthly plane contributed their concrete love by giving up time and countless material things. Many thanks.

I confirmed shared grief in its fullest expression when we went to scatter into the sea a dark powder called ash, which I still find impossible to believe. That was not "that" my father, but neither is his love exclusively mine, nor is the privilege of having had him for a time that I wish were eternal.

When I saw alongside the waves of Malecón and G his former students, his singer friends, writers, poets, journalists, playwrights, actors, essayists and historians, and above all his colleagues from Casa de las Américas, young people, veterans, newly incorporated members, founders, all colleagues as inconsolable as I was, overwhelmed, deeply sad, I knew that the anguish was... how to say it? shared, multiplied. Those faces reflected the intensity of a loss as irreparable as the one I felt, and only then did I discover that they had lost the same father that ceased to be mine to become many others'.

Feeling the sobs of others, the contained anger, the depth of the knife wound that means not being able to turn to his ever-wise counsel, nor to feel his thunderous laughter again, nor to see the slow gait of a king who insists on continuing to go to his salons despite the excessive weight of his crown, strengthened me.

Suddenly, I began to offer my condolences. That multitude was as hurt as I was, as without consolation as I was, as deeply wounded as I was, which is why my privileged condition as a biological daughter compelled me to soothe it. We no longer knew who was consoling whom, amid so many kisses, embraces, pats on the back: there also lies the great work of a great man.

We are all his children, all his sisters, all colleagues of work, and of play, and of casting into the air what he taught us most: Salvos of the future. We will remember him as he asked: "with joy," even though we violate the other part of that verse ("someday"), because, well we know, it will be always, always, always.