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Layda C's Story

It was very early in the morning, I remember it was still dark, when my father drove me acompanied with my mother from Matanzas to the airport in Havana, Cuba. Somehow the one-hour drive had seemed just minutes away! We arrived at the airport and I was allowed to come in with only my mother, who would stay on the other side of the glass wall without taking her teary eyes away from me. My father, whom was not allowed to come in with us, I could see sneaking in and walking by pass me, while behind the glass wall, letting me know that somehow everything was to be OK. It was the first time, in my life, that I was to be apart from my parents! Not knowing if and when I would see them again.

The airplane was parked in the open field and it was a windy day. I remember walking towards it along side a friend of mine, Omar, who was very much releaved of being allowed to leave Cuba because of his proximity to the age of serving in the army.

We sat next to each other on the plane, held hands and began to cry. I could see my father, through the airplane window, on the roof top of the airport waiving his white handkerchief goodby.

After the lift-off and in-between my sighs I could hear the passengers clapping as we approached the Florida stretch; soon after that I remember being surrounded by, what seemed to me, hundreds of people at the Miami International Airport. Don't know how I got in the bus, just remember a long ride to what it was going to be my new home for a couple of months, Florida City.