"[Fidel] was telling us what was good. Telling us how we should think. He was telling us what to choose and how to choose it. He was telling us we had no choice. And he was telling us we were free. Free at last."

It's unsettling when a quote about Fidel Castro sounds eerily familiar to the narratives we're hearing today in supposedly democratic countries. This made me pay even closer attention to Carlos Eire's story. 

In his memoir, Carlos tells the story of his life in Cuba as a young boy until he boarded a plane at 11 years old with his older brother, and without his parents, bound for a new life in the U.S.

The lack of a cohesive timeline made this a challenging read for me. You never knew where you were going to be—in place and time—with each chapter, which caused some emotional disconnection. However, Carlos' poetic writing drew me back and kept me interested until the end. 

Another initial irritation for me was a lack of emotion given the serious shit that was going down in Carlos' life. But, it clicked when I imagined how my own son would have handled some of the situations.

I realized that Carlos was authentically portraying how his young boy self deflected, projected, adapted, denied, and tried to make the best of all the craziness around him…exactly like most young boys would. Until he couldn’t any more. The moment I realized this was the moment my irritation turned to heartache.

Mission accomplished. I definitely have more insight into what happened to Cuba and her people when the Revolution hit in 1958...and, have so much more empathy for all who were displaced. Truly heartbreaking.