I don’t normally read a lot of biographies or autobiographies, but I recently finished two of the best memoirs I’ve ever read – Waiting for Snow in Havana and Learning to Die in Miami by Carlos Eire. Carlos Eire was one of 14,000 unaccompanied children airlifted out of Cuba in 1962 as part of Operation Pedro Pan.
The second book, despite the not-so-uplifting title, is an amazing story of not only death, but also of rebirth. For Eire, everything died – his childhood, his social status, his culture, his family unit. Everything. But this is his incredible account of being re-born, and it all ultimately centers around his journey of faith.
It’s hard to tell if these few excerpts will make much sense outside of the larger context of both books, but here’s his account of Good Friday:
The Spanish Viernes Santo that Tony and I had grown up with was all doom and gloom, a lethal combination of self-denial, ritual excess, and superstition. It was all about death and suffering, never about the Resurrection on Easter Sunday. Hell, I never even knew Easter existed until I came to the United States. I don’t mean the Peter Cottontail Easter, although that, too, was a total surprise. Eggs? Bunnies? I mean the celebration of Christ’s triumph over death, the assertion that he didn’t stay dead, and we won’t stay dead either. As far as I knew, Jesus Christ died every Good Friday and stayed dead all year long, until the next Good Friday came along, and so on. His sole function as redeemer was to die and stay dead, and die again and again, and hang on the cross, bruised and bloodied, until the end of the world, when he’d come back to judge the entire human race and send sinners to hell. It didn’t make sense, but then again, neither did anything else related to religion.
Later in the book, after reading Kempis’ The Imitation of Christ, he writes this:
I read the book gingerly at first, much like someone on the bomb squad might handle an explosive device. But before long I am deeply immersed in it, nodding in agreement even with the most repulsive of passages, which ask me to embrace suffering and to hanker for a cross like [that] of Jesus…
Everything changes, from top to bottom. A veil rips loudly, and light pours through, and nothing looks the same. For the first time in my life I feel as if I’m master of my own destiny, not because I think more highly of myself, but just the opposite: Accepting my own limitations is key. So is accepting it as an unquestionable fact that some higher power is eager to help me overcome whatever the world throws at me, both from without and within…
Slowly, ever so haltingly, I catch fleeting glimpses of Something so awesome that Carlos, Charles, Charlie, and Chuck [his various Cuban and American names for himself] all feel compelled to bow before It, thank It, and trust It without reservation. This response is a physical reflex, not just a spiritual one. Bowing, kneeling, prostrating oneself is as involuntary before It as closing one’s eyes to the full light of the sun…
It will take me several years to figure out what happened there, in that living room. But I know for sure, as I rise from the floor, that I’ve just died again and that nothing can ever be the same. I also know that this new life will be much better that any of those that preceded it. Not because it will be less painful from now on, but because the pain will make perfect sense, and even seem like a beautiful gift from that Presence I felt today, for the first time.
Good Friday. It’s good, really good. Really, really. For the first time ever.
These words seem a bit lost without the context of his dark, tragic story. You’ll just have to read these books for yourselves to get a full appreciation for the profound beauty of his journey.
May you have a really, really Good Friday.
