¡Buen viaje! – ¡Bon voyage – Safe journey! / Regina Coyula

At last! The punishment for my neighbor and friend Juan Juan Almeida was lifted, and he will be embraced by his wife and daughter. I’m not going to tell the story that all of you already know, but then I ask, and I can not find the logic: why did the government close the doors to a natural and discreet exit in a humanitarian case like that of Juan Juan’s, to turn it into a political case in which the Church had to intervene? I confess that I did not like JJ’s decision to undertake a hunger strike, it did not seem in keeping with the public figure he represented, more in tune with his carrying signs or sitting in the Plaza.

But on Monday when I went to see him at noon he was in bed and appeared to be small, as if the bed was huge. He could barely speak and when I asked him several things he answered by signs. I left his house very distressed. Afterward I related the experience to my husband, who never leaves the house, and after my comments he said that we would go to see him. We went on Tuesday night, he wasn’t there, but that visit, which never happened, was like a farewell; I know it must have been a very happy moment when JJ heard the good news of the visit from the greatest poet of the world, as he usually would say to charm my husband. ¡Buen viaje! Bon voyage! Safe journey!

August 26, 2010