It started when I was three. My family eye doctor did a very delicate surgery on my eyes. I had a good outcome, and forever after, he treated me like a princess whenever I had an appointment. He had courtly manners and never talked to me like a was a child. He was Cuban. We would have met for the first time in the decade after the embargo began. I am sorry to say, that I do not know his story or how he came to be living in my New England hometown.
Shortly before my marriage, I saw him. I was on my way to a three week trip to Argentina which was going to include almost a week in Paraguay.
"Oh..." he said, with a long sighing gush. "Paraguay! When I was a child, that was like going to the ends of the earth."
"Paraguay, the ends of the earth," I thought. "And I can't even go to your native country."Gradually, I began to know people who had been to Cuba. It still didn't seem possible that I would be able to visit myself, and then, suddenly, it was.
