Reasons to Live

Reasons to Live / Angel Santiesteban
Posted on February 10, 2015

My daughter, Daniela, is turning 16 and has written me a letter yearning
for my return, saying that this would be the best present for her — but
at the same time, she reaffirms her support and respect for my way of
thinking and the necessity to make it public, and to go to battle for
those rights. Her words are a caress on my face, a welcome breeze that
soothes my wrinkles and tribulations, a force that rises up my chest and
embraces me. "Papá, you are always with me, you are my pride, I speak to
everyone of you, never was I ashamed of the situation. I carry you
always in my heart, I swear, through everything and at every moment."

As for my son, Eduardo, he also offers me his support. This, despite
maternal pressure and influence from those who love him yet succumb to
their own political cowardice, and surrender before the political
police; even when, in silence, they think the same way I do and admire
me — and expressed as much in the dedications of books that I guard
jealously, in the event that some day, history might understand them.

My children wait for me because they know that I belong to them, and
they need me — and also because I am a friend of both of them, and we
discuss all human issues. Yet they also understand my need to be an
intellectual true to his time and the sacrifice that I savor like honey
in my mouth.


Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

December, 2014. Jaimanitas Border Patrol Prison Unit, Havana.

Translated by Alicia Barraqué Ellison

29 December 2014

Source: Reasons to Live / Angel Santiesteban | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/reasons-to-live-angel-santiesteban/