Mami real talk: Burying the dead in Cuba, a lesson in love against all odds

NBC Latino/ By Trina M. Fresco

Trina’s cousin Gustavito at the beach. (Photo courtesy by Trina M. Fresco)

Gustavito was 28, in hospice with no clear answers on whether there were minutes, hours or days of breath left in his body, though his mind was set on 80 years.   He developed lymphoma at 15 in La Habana, Cuba, where he was treated aggressively, and came to the States with his younger brother in 2004 with his father’s unwavering commitment.

I met the brothers months after their arrival, full of that glorious, genetically-predisposed love for life that Cubans have intertwined in their double-helix of DNA.  Their grandmother is the sister of my grandfather.  In good Cuban form, a second and third cousin is simply a cousin.  When I met my fathers’ cousin in 1999, there was a magnetism to those Fresco characteristics I am so proud to call my own.

By 2005 his lymphoma was in remission; he was healthy, young and working towards the aspirations of the American dream.  He had fallen in love with a future so bright.  He went to his annual check up in January of 2012, and a tumor had developed, quite aggressively, in his stomach area. In the beginning days of last November, I received a call from my Tio Papi that Gustavito was in grave health.  I called my cousin, the father, immediately and his primal sobbing and inability to speak told me the whole story without one word.

I walked into his hospice room the next day. Given major weight loss and the 12-round heavyweight-boxing match of cancer, he was unrecognizable to me.  The strength of God kept me from bursting into hysteria.  As we talked, he sat up and smiled at the memory of his first introduction to snow at Sofia’s 1^st birthday gala.  There it was, in his smile — I saw him.  We spoke for a few hours then I returned later that night with my husband, George. Outside the room the father says, “I have money, I have things, and none of it will help him.  I will lay on the table and let them take my life and put it into his body, but they can’t.”  We spoke on ideas for new businesses and the presidential election, for which he hoped Obama would get another chance.  We left on a Wednesday and Sunday morning I got the call that he had died the night before.

At the visitation on Tuesday, I had never seen this type of adornment before.  Eight-feet-tall flower arrangements fir for a king were lying in the coffin.  It was a two-floor funeral home, which housed eight visitation rooms on each floor. I learned that Cuban visitations, in Miami, last typically until midnight. My cousin had arranged for the viewing to last until the next morning at 8am as the Cuban tradition of staying with the deceased until they are interred.  Hundreds of people came to honor my cousin and his family, and a core group stayed the entire evening.

The embalming process is meant for burial in a few days and is challenging on cancer patients based on their medication and treatment; and my cousin wanted his son returned to Cuba to be buried in his family plot.  The process of transporting a body from the U.S. to Cuba is politically and monetarily monopolized. The U.S. approved the transport immediately.  Cuba only accepts applications on Wednesdays; and once a quota is full, the application rolls over to the next week and was finally approved six weeks later.  My cousin could have just buried him in Miami, yet his soul was devoted to taking his son home.  The final obstacle: Air-conditioned funeral homes in Cuba are strictly reserved for Castro’s regime. He was finally laid to rest the last week of December 2012, under extreme duress for his mourning father and mother, loving stepmother, suffering brother, grieving girlfriend and everyone else who adored him.

Through it all, I was so enamored by my cousin’s devotion to his son. My beautiful cousin died at 28 leaving a gaping hole of longing for his loved ones that I pray will be filled with his legacy of gentle kindness and fervor for life.  I am eternally grateful to have bared witness to such an amazing expression of pure love from so many, yet especially this cousin of mine (the father) who taught me a lesson of devotional love against all obstacles.  Gustavito, may your soul soar amongst the angels.

The key:  When love is real, love is pure; when love is pure it makes one unstoppable. Who are you devoted to with this expression of love?