Chris and I would not have co-founded Roots of Hope and be the people we are today, if it weren't for two great men: a gentleman and a loving fighter.

My grandfather, the perpetual loving fighter Jaime Gueits was a man bubbling over with passion and conviction.  In Cuba he started "El Herald" with his first donation made by Ernest Hemingway who lived down the street.  (Years later in Miami, he had to change the name of his paper.)  A funny anecdote, when he was a young professional years before the Revolution, he shared offices with a well dressed man named Fidel Castro.  One day after hearing his ramblings he told him "tu si estas loco!" meaning you're crazy!   When he met my grandmother, he and she both shared a love of poetry.  In his passing we discovered a love book of some of his original poems and discovered he was a talented artist too having drawn amazing pictures with just a ink pen.   With Alzheimers, my grandmother has lost her memory, but what she remembered the longest were my grandfather's poems and even now and again her eyes light up and she recites a portion.  My abuelo Jaime took a stand against Communism in Cuba and fled to Miami with five children.  As a poor man with a big family - Jamie, My dad Max, Martha, Vitcor, and Elizabeth, he knew of no limitations.   He started a corner store, butcher shop, mechanic shop....Always seeking the best for his family.   He took flying lessons and managed to fly a plane once. He was never weathly, but his experiences, pursuit of meaning, and exploration of life, made his life rich as it can be.  As a journalist he met the first President George H.W. Bush and never stopped writing.   You'd see him bent over long nights writing, printing, cutting, and pasting to create his local paper.  His devotion to Cuba never wavered a day.  As a grandfather, he'd talked endlessly to us about Cuban history.   He even played with capentry and built us a tree house, walk-in bird house, bunny home, and deck.  He continued to write articles, poetry, and fictinional stories till his passing. One of stories is about a slave owner falling in love with a black slave, and another about the life of a woman behind a Burka. My grandfather never accepted life as it is, but looked beyond the "Burka" we all hide behind and sought more.

My grandfather Gustavo A. Caballero favorite song was "Unforgettable" by Nat King Cole and this man is as unforgettable as they come.  My grandfather was often called by the ladies "El Caballero", the gentleman.  He was a religious man who put all his faith in God. He taught third graders in Belen Jesuits's then Elementary School in Cuba. When my grandmother fled Cuba during witch hunts of her (and many) religious group during the early Revolution, officials came looking for her and when she was gone took my grandfather instead.  My great grandmother was tied up, they beat my grandfather , and told him he must've driven her to meetings.  He was given a mock trial with masses of men and given nine years in prison. In the first prison, he heard men being shot each night by firing squads by his cell. Somewhere in his many prisons, only a third of men had beds,  were gven rotten rice to eat, and if a cat ventured into the mass cells there were shrieks of it's life taken by hungry men. (He never ate rice again). In another, the floors had bars under and above, they lined the bottoms of the floor with dynamite and men alievated themselves from above. My grandfather's glaucoma went untreated and he went blind.   I collected these tid bits of stories, but my grandfather never spoke of the ugly past, instead he always looked to a new day.  As such, as much pain has been caused to the Cuban people, we take that pain and see it  as fuel for a hopeful new day. 

Gustavo was released after three years for his blindess and came to the U.S. alone with two children four -my mom Maria - and five years old - Gus.  The first ten years of his and his children’s lives in the U.S. are largely a mystery.  After ten years in the U.S., this blind man with limited English could still not find a job. At age 47, he returned to school for an American degree, and by recording his classes and taking oral exams, he graduated as the Student with the Best Achievement of the Year and earned a B.A. in Psychology from Biscayne College (now St. Thomas University).  Gustavo first found work as a counselor’s aid and in 1986 joined the Miami-Dade Police department. The Dept. released a statement on his behalf stating “Caballero is remembered by those who knew him as a gentleman, hard worker, and top professional who never missed a days’ work and always wore a smile on his face. One of his greatest assets was his razor sharp memory....”

Caballero was a Knight of Columbus, a Catholic fraternal service organization, for sixty-three years providing financial assistance and service to the needy.  Gustavo and his dear friend Graciela Mendoza organized Grupo Amistad, a Catholic singles and widows group for some 20 years.  Despite being crippled with severe scoliosis, blind, and barely able to walk, he still loved his independence. And when I'd ask him how he'd find things, he'd say "I ask God and my hand knows where to move." At the last portion of his life, my mother and I moved in next door to help him. You'd see his Elderly van show up, they'd wheel him off to church to take his crush choclates.... he'd wave and say I'm off.  One day he called me and asked me to prepare a sign for him that said the year he came to this country, organized me taking him to "see" a museum, and brought our family together to march in a parade. He was a quiet man, but his mere presence spoke more volumes than any man I have ever met. 

If people ask why Chris and I work so hard and do so much for Cuba, it is because we would have to work our entire lives and still pale in comparison to the men that have come before us.

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