…mango juice running down your chin in the middle of July,
your abuela swatting flies with one hand and your nalgas with the other.
It meant novenas in candlelit living rooms,
and Celia Cruz blaring from a busted speaker while someone yelled,
“¡Baja esa música!”, but never really meant it.

It meant knowing how to pack a suitcase even when you weren’t going anywhere.
Because one day….that mythical algún día….we might leave.
Or someone else might.
And so you packed memories early:
your abuela’s rosaries, the smell of lechón on Nochebuena,
the sound of waves crashing on the Malecón like a second heartbeat.

It meant pretending not to notice the empty shelves,
the apagones, the silence when you asked where Papi went.
It meant watching grown-ups whisper and barter like magicians
while you counted ration tickets like they were treasure.

It meant being a kid, but never just a kid.
Because when the island shook from hunger,
your childhood became currency.

Still, joy showed up anyway…
In dominoes slapped down under mango trees,
in bicycle rides with three people on one seat,
in laughter that echoed louder than the sirens.

Growing up Cuban meant understanding joy and struggle
as two sides of the same coin—flipped over arroz congrí and fried egg dinners.
It meant being loud. And loving loud.
And never forgetting, even when forgetting might’ve made things easier.

It meant making a home in your own body
long before the world ever made one for you.
Meant dreaming in hope, crying in silence

And still….

Growing up Cuban meant learning how to laugh through grief,
to dance through difficulty, and to believe, somehow, that love was survival.

It meant learning to read your mother’s face like a weather report…
Sunshine when there was extra bread, storm clouds when someone from el Comité came asking questions.

It meant holding onto secrets the way other kids held onto toys.
Secrets about neighbors who disappeared.
About relatives who left.
About your own hunger.
It meant measuring wealth not in pesos, but in favors.
In whether the man with the eggs showed up that week.
In whether you had friends at the port who could get you cooking oil,
or at the clinic who could sneak you antibiotics when your cousin’s fever wouldn’t break.

And yet, amid the scarcity, you learned abundance.

Not the kind sold in stores, but the kind that shows up in a kiss on the forehead,
a shared cafecito in the morning,
a borrowed shirt that made you feel beautiful for a day.
The kind that tells you…oye, you matter,
even if the world never says it out loud.

You learned to miss people you hadn’t even met yet.
To say goodbye before you were ready.
To carry a country in your chest and still leave it behind.

And maybe that’s the hardest part.

That years later…decades later…
in another country, another language, another life,
you’ll hear the clang of a spoon against a tin cup, or smell garlic frying in oil,
and for just a moment, you’ll be back in that little kitchen, barefoot on cracked tile,
watching your mother dance alone to an old salsa buena vista social club song,
like the world wasn’t breaking outside.

And you’ll realize…you never left Cuba.
Not really.
Because Cuba…Cuba never left you.