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If you live long enough, you'll see that every victory turns into a defeat.
I remember the mixture of excitement and anxiety in my 7-year-old self as my mother said goodbye as she set out to take her first vacation away from our family. In many respects, she was a typical 1950s, suburban, stay-at-home mom. In other ways, she did not fit the role. Unlike the idealized Leave It to Beaver mothers I saw on television, she was not adept at cooking or baking. Yet, like all the other mothers I knew in our neighborhood when I was growing up, she was a constant presence in our house. We lived outside of Washington, DC, in a middle-class neighborhood that afforded my father an easy commute to his federal government job. Our family vacations were confined to visiting relatives in New York or Florida or going to the beach for a week in Ocean City, Maryland.
My father had served in the US Navy during World War II, but as far as I knew he remained on ship or was stateside. To my knowledge, my mother had never traveled outside the US, and I am certain that she had never previously traveled without my dad. So it was quite a shock when she announced that she and her best friend, Barbara, would be going on a trip to Havana, Cuba.
I imagine that I asked why she was leaving, but I don't remember her answer. I believe my parents pitched the trip to my brother and me with some combination of special time with Dad during her absence and the promise of exotic gifts upon her return. In my childhood memory, she was either gone for a very short time (in adult time, it was described as “just a few days”) or a very long time (I missed her terribly). But Mom did return as planned and described lovely beaches, rhumba music, and the delicious tropical fruits she ate.
There must have been some touristy, tchotchke gifts of some sort, but the
special present was an avocado, something we had never seen or heard of before. I can still recall the velvety texture of it on my