The August Break Day 12: Far Away

My mother is first generation Cuban. I grew up in Southern California surrounded by my large extended family, among my grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and the occasional transplant who had glommed on to our family for so long that they too had become part of our blood. I am grateful every day for the family experience I had growing up--such warmth and love and good food and arriving at parties only to spend the first 20 minutes making sure you said hello and gave a hug and a kiss to everyone there, even if you had only seen them the day before.

I remember every holiday, the men would gather in the backyard and shoot the shit for a couple of hours while smoking Cuban cigars. Whoever supplied the cigars (usually my dad) was a Big Deal-you could tell by the way they would marvel and fawn over the quality, the smell, the sight of the after dinner treat. The smell of cigar smoke, and my favorite, the inside of cigar boxes, is as familiar to me as the aroma of the sofrito simmering away on the stove top. Omnipresent, familiar, comforting, and evoking such nostalgia in me now that sometimes it's all I can do not to cry with longing. The older generation, the ones who came here in the late 50's, creating a new home, never to return to their own, are getting older; normal functions are breaking down, and I already find myself bracing for the impending loss.

Dave and I rolled up to my parents' house at about 6 on Monday night. My dad was still at work, and my mom, in her excitement to see us, had an announcement:

"I have two Cohiba's I've been saving; let's smoke one!"

So we did, out on the patio, drinking beer and playing gin (I won again).

The oldies no longer smoke cigars, the laundry list of ailments no longer conducive to the ritual. Passing the cigar back and forth with my mother felt almost like a rite of passage-moving from the world of child to one of taking my place at the grown-ups table, bridging the gap between two worlds.