When Your Past Is Waiting For You

A single trip back to Cuba turns into a confrontation with the one place Mario Cartaya never truly left: his own childhood. After 56 years away, he walks familiar streets, returns to his old school, and finds himself pulled toward a balcony where a long-buried scene suddenly plays in full color. What follows is as intimate as it is unsettling, a moment where he can almost see his eight-year-old self sitting beside him, and he finally understands what it means to reopen the vault of memory without being swallowed by it. 

We talk about how the subconscious protects us, why certain places act like emotional keys, and what real closure looks like when the people you loved are gone. Mario shares the extraordinary chain of events that leads him through Havana’s Colón Cemetery, lost records, and a phone call that sounds impossible until it’s true, Fidel Castro’s son helps point him toward his family’s grave. Along the way we dig into grief rituals, identity repair, and the difference between forgiving and making peace with your destiny. 

The conversation also widens into Cuban history, architecture, and Mario’s research on a forgotten century of US Cuba friendship using the Library of Congress. We end with the story of the pelican on the beach, a symbol that lands at the exact moment he needs permission to believe his father would be proud. If you care about immigrant identity, Cuban exile stories, healing the inner child, and the psychology of memory, you’ll want to hear this. Subscribe, share with someone who misses home, and leave a review telling us what part of your own story you’d go back to find.

Transcript

The Balcony Memory Reappears

SPEAKER_02 0:08

Welcome to Real Talk with Tina and Anne. This is part two with Mario Cartea. What happens when you finally go back to the place that your life was split in two? In part two, Mario Cartea returns to Cuba for the first time in over five decades and comes face to face with a family that he was separated from as a child. He stands at the grave of his grandparents, the ones he never got to say goodbye to, the ones he carried in silence all those years, and in a moment that feels almost impossible to believe. But Fidel Castro's son helped him find them. But this isn't just about a return. It's about reopening the vault of memory, about sitting beside the eight-year-old boy he once was, and finally giving him the peace that he never had. And what makes this story even more powerful? This is a man who went on to be honored by the United States government, a highly recognized architect, and someone who has rubbed elbows with presidents, yet still carried a piece of his past that needed healing. How do you rebuild a life that was interrupted? And what happens when you finally go back to where it all began? This is part two where we talk about Mario's book, Journey Back into the Vault in Search of My Faded Cuban Childhood Footprints. But it was like also that your past and your now were coming together and your now was like welcoming your past and saying that to you, welcoming you.

Inside The Vault Of Memory

SPEAKER_04 1:33

The biggest moment when that happened was in the same balcony where I saw my father ask for permission to leave. Okay. That was um that was right towards the end where I went to the previous house that I lived in uh right before we moved into the Apollo house, which is the house from where I left. We moved to a brand new development. They were all new homes. And when they began building, and my father who was doing very well in his accounting practice, said, okay, let's move there. Right? And so I'm back in that other home. Um and they let me in, and all the while that the guy that was there who remembered us, all the while that the guy is touring us through this house that I'm remembering step by step, something kept saying, go to the balcony. I didn't know why. I call it my siren song. I kept looking at the balcony and then continuing looking at it again. It's like I could not get myself over the balcony. I did not remember that moment yet. That moment came back. But I I asked Gahilberto, who was the son of the owner of the uh of the house. I said, Can I go out there alone? I think I need to experience something. I gotta go there. No, you can't. My mother is there, she's in a bad mood, she's got a bad headache. Don't go in the balcony. I said, okay, can at least go up as far as the last uh stair tread. She goes, okay, you can go to the landing, he said. You can be more comfortable, but don't go beyond that. Okay, okay, I won't. I don't want to deal with a woman that has a headache and isn't feeling well. No, no way. So I did. I went there and I sat right at the edge of the stairs and looked down. And that's when the whole scene played out. My father asked him for, and I remembered it. And it was extremely emotional. I'm remembering everything that happened, everything I felt when I was eight years old, sitting there, realizing the future that was in front of me. And then all of a sudden, I looked and I saw my eight-year-old self sitting right next to me, looking at me. And it was weird. Like, Mario, why are you seeing yourself when you're young? And then I realized, no, it's just a memory. So just a strong memory. But in my mind, first thing that I thought is, look at me. Look at how innocent I was. And then funny enough, my parental instincts kicked in. And it was like, I want to tell him that everything is going to be okay. I want to tell him, you know, all the things that are going to happen. Uh he always knows that it'll always be okay. But then it dawned on me. Um I don't have to. Because he's always been me. He's always been inside me. That's my past. That's what I kid you're looking for. And then he he just disappeared. And then I realized the importance of the moment. He had all the memories. Me when I was nine, eight, sitting there, had all the memories. We divided that day. He couldn't come with me. And so there he was in my subconscious. That's where he lived. Far enough away. And at that moment we teamed up again. He became me. And then it was just a matter of memories and memories and memories and memories and memories returning some beautiful. That was one that I remember going into the garage of that house. And my grandfather used to, for fun, uh, do carpentry. He would do beautiful sculptures and and also furniture. And one day I walked in there, the middle of a Havana summer, hot as can be, and he's sitting there sweating and planing some wood with the old planers, you know? Mm-hmm. And I remember looking at him and saying, Tata, that's what I used to call him, ta-ta. Um, I feel something funny in my heart seeing you work that hard and sweat the way you do. Am I gonna be okay? And my grandfather getting up from his chair, coming over to me, holding me up in the air, hugging me, and then saying, Marito, you just gave me a great gift. That feeling you have in your heart, that's because you love me, son. And I remember that. More than remember what happened, I remember how I felt. And I remember thinking, so this is what love is. Because not only did the memories come back, but the way that I felt when I was making that memory came back as well. I was that age. What I now know that I didn't know then, is that um every time you remember something, you're really remembering the last time you recalled it. And along the way, your brain keeps making bridges to fill in what is forgotten. Voices, colors, background, you know, all that. Right? But in my case, since I never remembered any of that, it was like it happened the day before. They weren't corrupted, not at all. So I didn't just remember my memories like reels, an entire conversation with the context inside the garage. The context he was planning a piece of wood. There weren't pictures, there were movies, videos. Because to my mind, to my conscious mind, that happened the day before. Because I had never thought of it for 56 years. Now I know that. I didn't know it then. I just knew that some wonderful things were happening to me and that there was a force greater than me at play.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Wow. I you you painted that so visually, so beautiful. I mean, it was I just picture you sitting next to your eight-year-old self.

unknown 8:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:56

I mean, oh my gosh, that's just so touching. And and how you became one in that moment from who you were now in in that eight-year-old self, and letting yourself know that you're going to be okay, that you've always been you. I mean, oh my gosh, I'm I'm getting teary. You know, I mean, that that um that's that's really a beautiful visual. And I'm so glad that you were able to have that. And you had to go all the way to Cuba to get that.

SPEAKER_04 9:35

The stimulus.

SPEAKER_02 9:38

You probably would not have had that kind of closure if you would not have ever gone back.

SPEAKER_04 9:45

Well, absolutely. It it was now I know, I did know it then, but now I know uh that it was the stimulus. What happens, what they tell me that happened is that when I went back to my home, recognizing where I was, put me there. Once they put me there, I'm in my subconscious already.

unknown 10:05

Right.

SPEAKER_04 10:06

So at that point, the subconscious says, let it go. He's here, he's inside the subconscious, let it go. So at every at every point of stimulus where I put myself in the subconscious memories, not conscious, but the subconscious memories, I'm there already. That's the vault. Every time that I went somewhere and they brought back the memories, I'm inside the vault. I was preaching the vault. The vault is the subconscious. Okay. So going journey back into the vault. The vault is two things. It's Cuba, which always has been a vault, but it's also that place in the subconscious where our memories that are quite not so good are kept away from us so we don't spend our times thinking backwards, but we concentrate in the future. It's a survival mechanism. Now I know.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

Right. And it's a giving permission. It's allowing yourself to go there. And when the memories are revealed, to allow them to be whatever they are. The good and the bad.

SPEAKER_04 11:25

The good and the bad, right?

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Because you you also visited the graves of your grandparents. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 11:32

That was Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:34

Uh people you love deeply and and you never got to see them again. I mean, I'm sure that that was incredibly emotional. What was that like for you? And did you get other did other memories come back because of that?

SPEAKER_04 11:51

Yeah. Um I I knew that they were buried in Cologne Cemetery. That's a huge cemetery with more than a million graves in it. Um it's almost like like a city inside of Havana. Huge area. And nowhere. So we we drive there, we we go to the office, and I I'm talking to the lady in the records room, and I told her, I'm here to visit my um family's grave. Uh, do you have anything listed under Marcos Mateo? Because he was the first to go. So I figure, okay, if it's the first to go, it'll be under his name. You know? Mm-hmm. And she comes back from the old records, and there are no computers. She goes into this huge vault of her own to find all these documents. She comes back, paper. I can't find anything under Marcos Mateo. I'm sorry. I'm not my heart fell. I thought that's one, that's one of the biggest reasons why I went. I had to say goodbye. I need a closure.

SPEAKER_03 12:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 12:56

And so then I remembered that someone told me that once that a person named Odio had buried us along with his family, because for a while you could not own your grave in Cuba. Communism, right? You can't own anything. That's private. So you can own your grave. So you have to be buried in a mass grave of people who died in your city that week. That kind of a thing. So, Mario, don't worry, there's a family called Odio who took care of you guys. Okay. So, do you have anything named for this guy named Odio? Let me check. So she goes back, comes back again. No, I'm sorry, I don't have anything for that either. I'm about ready to give up. And then she goes, but I do have a grave with a Marcos Mateo. That's listed under a different name. Well, can I have it? Come with me. So she made me go to a corner of the office where there was there was nobody around, and she says, Um, I'm gonna give you the men's name and phone number. Suffice it to know that this is Fidel Castro's son. What? Exactly. That's what this is Fidel Castro's son. So I said, okay, look, I've spoken to American presidents, Argentinian presidents, Peruvian presidents. I can talk to Fidel Castro's son. No problem. Give me his number. So I called him up. Three rings later, he answers the phone in Spanish. So I said, hello, he goes, hello. I said, my name is Mario Cartalla Mateo. And he goes, Mayito? So I I stopped and I said, please. His name is Angel. Angel. I said, Angel, um, how do I know you? Don't you remember? I said, no, that's why I'm here. To remember. He goes, ah, we knew each other from school. When we were kids, we played together all the time. And then his mother had married my uncle after I left. And so there's a relationship there. And I knew this kid growing up in my school. Once he said it, but oh yeah, Angelito. Now I know who he was. But back then, you don't know. Angel, Angelito. I mean, how many angels have I met in my life? Other than the ones who seem to follow me everywhere, right? Um so I said, um, boy, yes, this is quite a surprise. He goes, Yeah, I kind of thought that it would be for you. I was hoping that you would you would call me someday. And so, you know, we went to the wedding together, right? And so um he said, Have you have you been over to your family's grave yet? And I said, No, Angel, I haven't. That's why I'm calling you. Uh, somehow your name is listed with uh my family's grave. I'd like to know where it is, so I can go there and pray. And he says, Look, I'm sorry, uh, I don't know where it is, but my ex-wife knows. So, well, can you call her and ask her to nominal Mario? I I can't call her. We haven't spoken to each other in 10 years.

SPEAKER_02 16:36

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_04 16:37

And I began laughing. Well, I can see the divorces in Havana are just as bad as those in the United States. He began to laugh. But I said, Don't worry, don't worry. Here's what he was gonna do call his daughter, who lives in Cologne, Germany, for her to then call back her mother, sitting in Havana, for her to call me. So I'm figuring, okay, six hours difference between here and Germany and back to call and Cuba's telephone system is not that good. Uh I'll never get anything back. So, okay, no problem. Thank you. I appreciate that. And so I told um the um guy that we hired to tour us through them and take us to the grave sites, okay, let's go see my other grandfather's name, uh uh, please. The Cartaya, who died when my father was only four years old.

SPEAKER_03 17:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:35

I had never met. So he he takes me there, and there I am in front of my grandfather that I never met. But it's still family. My grandmother is not buried with him because she eventually came to the U.S. But yet there it is a lot for two with only one part being open. So obviously, she intended to be buried next to her husband. She just died in Miami, and we buried her there about 20 years ago. While I'm there, I get my driver running at me with a cell phone. Mario, I have a lady that says she knows you, that she was married to Fudor Castro's son. I didn't tell anybody about that, but okay, now the secret is out in the open. So give me the phone. So I speak with her and she goes, Maito, do you remember me? And I said, No. And then she told me about her. She was my mother's student in the in the school, too. Oh, okay. And I went to her wedding with I and her son, all that. And so she gave me the address. I had to go through all that in order to then get the address. So then we were able to finally go find my family, and um, and I had my closure. I spoke with them, and I had brought from here photographs of my American family. And I had the pleasure of putting all those photographs on top of their graves. They have these things where you put letters or flowers or whatever. So I put all of the photographs of all of us that came here, including my parents. And at that point, I was able to re-reunify the family for the first time in 56 years. Now they weren't alive. But you know what? That was good enough for me. I was able to somehow bring us all together, if only in a symbolic fashion.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

It is absolutely miracle after miracle after miracle that you found this person that led you to this, that led you to this. I mean, oh my gosh. And then, I mean, how long were you there?

SPEAKER_04 20:07

In Havana, I was there for six days.

SPEAKER_02 20:11

So all of this happened within that amount of time. And more. Um is there any other stories that you want to share before we move on? Because these are amazing.

Walking Into The Fourth Grade Room

SPEAKER_04 20:22

My school. I go to my school. Edison Institute is now just called the Edison School. Okay. They changed, but at least they allowed the name Edison. And like everything in Cuba, nothing has changed. You you it's like you go into a time capsule. And so I meet the headmaster, I'm able to talk talk to her into allowing me to go with a guide through the school just to see it again. Ten steps away from the the uh um superintendent's uh office, the guy gets a phone call from his girlfriend, he's gotta leave. Guys behave, don't get me in trouble. Good. So now I'm with George and we're walking around, and again, the siren song begins again. George, let's go to the second floor. So we climb up to the second floor. Kids changing classes, right? And so as I'm walking, I gotta open that door. Just a random door in the second floor. I opened the door. There's nobody inside, except for a sign that says, Welcome to the fourth grade. That was the classroom from which I left Cuba quietly one day, so as to not get beat up by people knowing that I was leaving for the U.S. And there I am, right back in my classroom that I left with the sun. Welcome to the fourth grade. And all of a sudden, it's like I could see all the other kids sitting around me, and I began to recognize some of them. That's where Pepito used to sit. You know, that's where Millie used to sit. And little memories came back. Almost expecting at any minute for the teacher to come in. Thank God she didn't.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

But that's amazing that you found the school even and then the room.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

The only room I went into happened to be the school from where I left. The classroom from where I left.

SPEAKER_02 22:45

I mean, you can't write this. I mean, this is a movie.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

It it needs to become a movie. I mean Well, um, there is um a group in Hollywood. I got up a phone call uh about two years ago from this lady called Cecilia Hall. Cecilia Hall is an Academy Award winner for Hunt for Red October. She's a sound editor. And she read the book. And she gave me a call from Hollywood saying, Mario, um, I read your book. Have you ever considered making a movie? I'm thinking, okay, this is one of those spam type calls. All right. So I said, okay, how much money is it going to cost me? She goes, nothing. Mario, I am Cecilia Hall. Look it up. Okay, I will. And I want to put together a team for you. Because as a matter of fact, what are you doing next week? You want to come to Hollywood so that you can meet us? I figured, why not? I haven't been to California in years. Little vacation with her. So I fly out to LA. I she takes me to this restaurant and she introduces me to this guy. His name is Tibor Takax. Tibor Takax is a Hollywood um director. He's directed 70-something movies in Hollywood. Like her, they're both Hollywood royalty. They've been around a long time. Okay. And uh he Takax says, Mario, please allow me to be your director on this movie because uh I left Hungary just like you left Cuba and had been back for 35 years. Your book, your story, is my story. A lot of things in common. So I can't say no to that. So I said, sure. What's it gonna cost me? Nothing. We're gonna make a movie for the love of filmmaking. So now uh we're done with the movie script. Uh we have a filmmaker that needs to do it. We're ready to now get investors. We haven't really tried too hard to get investors in. I've been trying to finish my uh third book that should be finished today, tomorrow. I'm putting the final touches on it. Uh but then beginning next week, I'm gonna start looking at investors. Uh, we need three million dollars in order to make the movie happen. And we're all very optimistic that the timing is right. With everything happening in Cuba today, the timing of this is perfect. Returning.

SPEAKER_02 25:32

Of course. Everything has been perfect. All the timing has been perfect with your story.

Researching A Century Of Friendship

SPEAKER_04 25:38

Yeah, and so why not this one as well? So, yeah, it's funny you should mention a movie, but yeah, there's a movie that hopefully will be made sometime this year. And uh, we're now in the process of uh getting funds. What is your third book? Oh, the the third one you're gonna love. When I retired from architectural practice, you know, as you know, I had a 43-year business that did very well. Uh bringing all kinds of awards uh to the U.S. on all these buildings that I've done, airports and things of this sort. And um when I retired, uh, I was given the honor of having an American flag flown over the U.S. Capitol to honor me and everything that I've done. Along with that came a pass. I I have a card that allows me to have the same rights and privileges as any sitting senator or congressman to go in the library of Congress and look at anything up to a classified uh setting. So I used it. Two years ago I used it. And I got data, only data, uh, and letters and congressional acts, congressional votes, this kind of a thing, military records on what was the US and Cuba friendship cooperation between 1860 and 1960. And what it showed me was the realization that there was a friendship that was beautiful, how both nations would do something for each other constantly to help each other for 60 years in a subject where everything you read is either you know way right or way left, and there is no truth where they're quoting quotes of people that never bothered to check uh in the Library of Congress, but they're quoting other authors who never check, right? Uh stories became truth that weren't. And my research proves it wrong. So I I wrote the book to set the record straight that yes, there was a time that the US and Cuba were just not business partners, but friends. A friendship that was possible only because it was the greatest generation. There were people whose values were very different, very positive, and where friendship a handshake meant everything to them. Honor, reputation, legacy, meant everything to those people. And with that, since both countries had the same value system, it was easy for people to become friends when you trust each other. And that's what that book's all about. I'm finishing it up. Uh I is gonna go back to the publisher probably Friday, tomorrow, and uh from there to go back to the editor that already had given me some things to do. And I think it's gonna be another one of those great books.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Oh my gosh, it sounds like it. And even though the government changed things, it's the people were still the same.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Exactly. I talk about that in in Journey, back into the bowl, where I say something like such is the um unconventional relationships between the Cubans, whether in the island or in exile. No matter what, there's a brotherhood that transcends the politics.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Amen. I mean, seriously. How did returning to Cuba change the way that you saw yourself?

Identity As Cuban And American

SPEAKER_04 29:49

100%. When I went there, I was I've always been characterized as a Cuban American. I've always been okay with that. I'm a Cuban American. Exactly. When I came back, I wasn't. When I came back, I came back as a Cuban and as an American, living in peace within one body and in one life. Our own. I can be more American than any American with you. I can be more Cuban now than any Cuban with any Cuban friend. I'm both. One doesn't believe the other. I am a child of two cultures, I'm a child of two of two countries, I'm a child of two everything. The one thing that keeps everything together are the values that both the Cubans and the Americans had, at least while I was growing up. I always looked at the Americans as being Cubans who spoke English. No different than me. No different than my parents. That has never changed. And the same way that I look at Cubans as being like me. It's who you are as a person. As a human.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Both of your worlds just came together.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Yeah, the you became now. I am two beautiful cultures living in one beautiful mind.

SPEAKER_02 31:23

Did your parents keep those traditions and cultures after they returned here to the United States? Did you live a lot of those Cuban cultural experiences?

SPEAKER_04 31:35

The one thing that kept us together as a family, uh just celebrating each other, was uh the culture of every Sunday, no matter what, we meet and we have a family lunch. You know, and during that lunch, my mother plays the piano. And when I was in the in the cemetery, I forgot to mention this, right after I cried my eyes out, because I realized that I had promised my dad I would never cry, I never had. I realized that as I was going through this incredible uh mix of feelings of being three feet away from my family that I left. And when I finished all of my my crying, um my mind went to one of those Sundays. See the pattern? Yeah. But then the mind goes to, yeah, but now remember this. And there they all were. My uncles, my father, telling stories I I wasn't allowed to listen to. But I did, because I'm hurrying. I used to hide and listen to them. Right? Don't found me out yet, you know. I'm I may be a little, but I understand. I'm allowed to listen to their stories, and my uncle drinking the beer out of the same glass that I saw in Hector's house, and I brought with me. I have it here. My uncle's glass. And my my my mom playing the uh the piano during that time, and my father just my grandfather, the patriarch, just looking over everybody with a big smile on his face. This is the family. This family formed. And all that memory came back in the cemetery to stop me from crying and bring a moment of joy. Yeah, I'd rather remember them, not as bones, you know, in caskets, but yeah as my family. Right. That brought so much joy to each other.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

It sounds like there was a lot of remembering, but there was also maybe a lot of forgiving through it as well.

SPEAKER_04 34:00

Reconciliation.

Reconciling Without Excusing Regimes

SPEAKER_02 34:02

What was there a process of forgiving maybe the government or things that went on in order to separate your family?

SPEAKER_04 34:09

Well, it's it's a matter of how do you define it. Okay. Right. Uh do I forgive the government uh for all the acts of violence that they've had against people? Of course not. Yeah, that's why. Do I forgive them for the diaspora? Of course not. But the people hurt, not only here, but there as well. For every Cuban who leaves Cuba, there's a family left behind that misses them.

SPEAKER_03 34:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:39

It works both ways. The pain is equal on both sides of the Florida Straits. But am I at peace with my destiny? That's the bigger question. Yeah. I had a destiny. My destiny was to come to the US and accomplish what I accomplished here with my parents, with my brother, and to be able to then in the twilight of my life, go back and make peace with everything. It was meant to be. And I'm okay with that. Not everything in life is gonna be roses. You're gonna have some thorns along the way, too. And I'm okay with that. That's what was in the cards for me. So I don't blame the government for my destiny. I don't blame the other Cubans because they couldn't have been nicer to me. Right. They could not have been more welcoming, more helpful every time that I wanted to do something, and more forgiving of me. I made reconciliations and I made friends and I made um I made peace with them, or most importantly, I made peace with me.

SPEAKER_02 36:03

Yeah, you know, I was gonna ask you about your inner peace that you describe in your book, and the the peace actually, it feels like you found exactly what you were looking for.

SPEAKER_04 36:12

Absolutely, and much more.

SPEAKER_02 36:15

Wow. So it's more than a place that you visited, it's a it's a place of acceptance.

SPEAKER_04 36:23

I visited myself. That's what that's what I did. I just I had to go there to visit myself, to breach the the walls of, you know, the vault.

SPEAKER_02 36:37

Right, right.

SPEAKER_04 36:38

I had to go there for that.

SPEAKER_02 36:40

Your um book received the book Nomad Tales Five Star Awards.

SPEAKER_04 36:46

We have three international awards, okay. Two uh American Writers Awards. There's two from England, from London, and there's one from I think Australia.

SPEAKER_02 36:57

Wow. And the the book Nomad Tales Five Stars Award was because of, I mean, it's a story crosses over many cultures and generations, and it's it's it's the bigger picture.

SPEAKER_04 37:10

It's human, it's humanity. You know, we we turn to bury humanity behind many things, but we shouldn't. Human connection, right? Humanity should always come first before anything else.

SPEAKER_02 37:27

This is such a human story. I mean, it I mean, understanding your past in order for you to become whole, visiting your eight-year-old self, sitting next to your eight-year-old self, unlocking that vault, going to your grandparents' graves, and and also the connections of the people that you met along the way that were actually people from your past, that who in the world would have thought that you would have been standing in front of? I know that you probably never imagined that you would ever connect with them again. What a gift. So, I mean, everything that you discovered on this journey, I mean, would you go back again? You took your son back. What was that like?

The Pelican Sign From Dad

SPEAKER_04 38:17

Oh, that was beautiful to be able to show him um his heritage. Right. Not not just his heritage by being my son, but his uh architectural heritage as well. The buildings. Um those that came to with the Spanish colony in the in the 1500s, you know, and those that was that were built by the Cubans and the Americans later on. Cuba today is a museum. Since nothing has been built there since 1960. Or very few things. Everywhere you go, there's a history lesson that if you don't know, then you miss. But you're missing walking through the history of Cuba by all the buildings left behind. Here we tear them down and we rebuild. And then we tear those down and we rebuild it, and so on. There they haven't torn anything down. So 1500, 1600, 1700, 1800, you know, 1900 building, they're all there. So you can tell how Cuba changed because it's all there waiting for you to see. And I didn't expect that either.

SPEAKER_02 39:35

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's interesting. And I it's amazing that you got to share that experience with your son and take him to the places that you grew up in before you had to leave.

SPEAKER_04 39:48

It was a beautiful experience, of course. Uh, we hugged each other. Well, I took my my daughter too. It was my daughter that it took. Yeah. Um and it was wonderful for all of us. Now I think that now they know me a little better.

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Yeah, isn't that I mean, that is just so important. That's what I want my kids, you know. We just want to pass those things down to our kids so they can pass them down to their and and it's more than just your story. I mean, it's a history lesson.

SPEAKER_04 40:17

Well, that that's all part uh of the 100 years of friendship. That's the book's name that I'm releasing pretty soon. It's a hundred years of friendship.

SPEAKER_02 40:26

Okay, well, that's a tease. That's a tease for what's coming.

SPEAKER_04 40:32

That's all there. You you can't write it and not write about what happened in the Spain colonial years that then leads to the Americans, right? Coming in, and and so it's it's all outlined. And I do have a passage that kind of says something like that. Okay. People walk past these buildings every day, not knowing what they're looking for, yet these buildings want to be heard.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

Well, I look forward to it coming out, and maybe we could have you on again when it does.

SPEAKER_04 41:03

Um a good book.

SPEAKER_02 41:06

I just love how you used everything in your life to become who you are today and going back and allowing yourself to experience that and open up that vault. That's brave.

SPEAKER_04 41:19

It was a moment of clarity, and that was all Obama. But I I heard him um read that poem, which is a poem that you learn when you're lit. When you're in Cuba, you have to know the poem. At least you had to. Nowadays everything is different. But back when I was there, you had to memorize that poem because it's a poem about how to treat each other. You know, I cultivate a white rose for a friend. Well, that's easy. But I also knew one from my enemy. A little harder to do. Wouldn't it be nice if we lived in a world that everybody cultivated two roses?

SPEAKER_02 41:54

That's a good message.

SPEAKER_04 41:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Well, you were very brave to go back there. That's a big thing. And look what it did for you.

SPEAKER_04 42:04

There's a chapter called The Pelican, which was my last day in Cuba. We finally made it to Varadero. On the beach. The last day we spent in Varadero, because we all had to just kind of catch our breath. Give me a day on the beach with my friends where we can talk about everything that happened all week. Whom better with than your friends, right? Right. And um and then the pelican happened. Um we went drinking, of course, the night before. We knew the next day we were gonna be in the beach. So, you know what, let's go celebrate, you know, six beautiful days. Tomorrow we're gonna be on the beach and then we leave. You know? So let's just blow it out. We did. You know, I was drinking to everything. I was drinking to uh, you know, Hector, I was drinking to Gilberto, I was drinking to my little me, I was drinking to my school, I was drinking to the gators. I'm a gator. You know, gator. I was drinking, I was drinking to everything, and they were too, we're having a great time. And the next morning Jose was sick. So we're on the beach, it's not feeling well. Uh Jose, let's go in the water. No, no, no, no. I don't feel we need you guys go ahead. So George and I go in the water, we begin swimming, just feeling, and then it's like, let's go for a walk. And we go for a walk right along the the uh the shore, and we're rehashing the whole week. Jose is hung over, slinting it off, throwing up on the beach. It was horrible. So, and then he began snoring. So it's like it's it's it's time to get out of here, you know? So we didn't and so along the way, I I said, you know, um George, every day that I've been doing this, I keep wondering to myself, uh, what would my father think? Coming back to the island that he was forced to leave. Mm-hmm. Your dad, because what was your dad like? Yeah, my dad was a great guy. He had a great sense of humor. He was my best friend, right? I told him about a joke he used to always tell. That if he was on the beach with us, he would always told, tell the joke that I heard him say a thousand times about the pelicans. Mm-hmm. So he said that if reincarnation was possible, he wanted to sign up and then come back as a pelican. Because pelicans spend their days flying over the beach, looking at the girls in their bikinis, and then they would eat fish every day. And at night, when things got you know late, they would go land in the balconies of the most expensive condominiums and watch the sunset, just to do it all again the next day. It's a great way to spend eternity. And so not sooner than I said that, I'm looking at him. Behind me is the beach. And George goes, Mari, you're not going to believe this. Look what just landed behind you. A lone pelican. And he sat there, maybe 20 feet away from me, in the shallow part of the beach, where pelicans, there we go. And he's just staring at me. He wouldn't look away. In the book, I say that I I have spent um the whole week putting in that vault. As I was taking things out, I was putting in the pain and the agony of wondering whether my father would accept what I was doing. And then I said the sight of the pelican made me realize that I would not have to reopen that door because there was no reason to ever put anything in there. Of course, he would have been proud of the courage to go back and remember his family, our family. And without me saying it, George said, Mario, it seems to me that you're being sent a message. He wants you to know that he's proud of you. Now I'm not saying that the pelican was my dad. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that that the siren song. Right. Um placed a pelican there. Right. To communicate.

SPEAKER_02 46:39

It was another sign. It was it was a symbol. It was letting you know.

SPEAKER_04 46:43

It's okay. What a way to end it. What I would have started with Hector, what I would have ended with me making peace with going there and my relationships with my dad. That were always great.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

I I just can't get over how much happened in six days. Crazy. I mean, the way that all of I mean, I picture this taking place over weeks or months, but six days. Six days. Six days. Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_04 47:15

Six beautiful days.

Values Learned From The Greatest Generation

SPEAKER_02 47:17

Well, God can create the world in six days. And so I guess that all happened to you in six days. That that's just beautiful. Well, thank you for feeling that you felt led to share. Did you learn anything about yourself while you wrote the book? Did you learn more?

SPEAKER_04 47:38

Memories kept coming back, and they're still coming back. Mm-hmm. But as as I'm writing, memories kept coming back. Mm-hmm. They're not coming back every day anymore. But once in a while, something, it just happened two days ago. The editor for the a hundred years will go a little deeper. Right. On um the whole friendship relationship and and and and everything else. And why would that happen? Could that happen today? And I began to to ask myself, why am I so why am I so involved in this book? What's driving me in this book? And then when I realized that yes, all these things happen, because the people that were living during that age, that ends in 1959, were the greatest generation. And then it hit me. Okay. Even though I'm a baby boomer. And my kids will tell you I'm a baby boomer. Don't be such a boomer, right? So they'll remind you real quick that you're a baby boomer. But I was raised by a family that we talked to with each other every day. We had ongoing dialogues that would last days. It was that kind of house where we talked about anything we wanted to. There was nothing taboo, there was nothing off limits. We talk. Because that's what families do. That's what people do. I learned that from my family. But even though I'm a baby boomer and I display every sign of being a baby boomer, I grew up a child of the greatest generation. Because that was what taught me. Not one person, not two, but several. They taught me how to behave, feel, you know, uh be. Like, you know, the honesty of a handshake, integrity, dignity, loyalty, values, all of these things that makes the greater gener generation as wonderful as a generation was. A handshake was everything. You know, the reputation was everything. And it dawned on me. Yeah. I went to Cuba looking for more than my history. I went to Cuba looking for my my own conscience. How did I grow up? I grew up being taught the values of the greatest generation. So when a guy like Hector does that, yeah, that's the way I grew up. When the lady and the Edison Institute lets me go in, imagine during classrooms.

SPEAKER_03 50:43

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 50:43

Let's say go in. That's the greatest generation. Everywhere I went, the acceptance, uh the the welcoming is all greatest generations. I think Cuba skipped the boomers because they've always been uh controlled by the 360 generation. That's all they know. I think they skipped over the boomer generation. And I saw that. And in many ways, that's a big portion of who I am. That value system. The work ethics, you know, all that. That generation. Doing something for others. So even lately that thought hit me. I went there wanting to feel that again. And at this. Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 51:43

Yeah. There's something to say about being raised under a dictatorship or control where you know you you're afraid to do anything.

unknown 51:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:56

And it sounds like, you know, you revisited a place that had uh some form of freedom.

SPEAKER_04 52:03

Well, the freedom is outside the fingertips of the government. Right. Outside the fingertips. In other words, when the government is around, people act, speak, they behave a certain way. As soon as the government leaves, there you go. And they become the the families. And in those families, you see those values. Right. See all that. Not so much with the government. Right. If you were to put it down to just simple words, bad government, good people. Right. That's what I I saw. Right. Why? Because they still had those those values. They haven't sold out.

unknown 52:47

Right.

SPEAKER_04 52:47

Of course, there's some that have. I'm not gonna say that's everybody, but by and large, the people I met were all like that. Then they were all older.

SPEAKER_02 52:57

So Cuba is a beautiful place to you, even today.

SPEAKER_04 53:01

Even today. That's why I hope that if change does happen, I hope that it comes peacefully, that nobody gets hurt, and that the patrimony, the buildings, left behind that they remain. What a history told. They are more important than one dictatorship. There will be other governments sooner or later. That's the history of the world. Right? We transition every so often.

SPEAKER_03 53:42

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_04 53:43

True. It's only been 65 years. That's a lot in one person's lifetime. My own, it's most of my life. Right. But not if you look at it in epochs.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

Mm-hmm. Well, thank you for all of this. Your life's history. And also, it was a history lesson of Cuba. I really appreciate this.

SPEAKER_04 54:09

We're all part of a history lesson. You are. Right. I am. We all are. We're all part of a history lesson. You might as well know it. You might as well realize it. Hopefully we learn from it.

SPEAKER_03 54:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:22

And by the way, history is not politics. History is very because it includes history as it affects you.

unknown 54:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04 54:31

And your family. And your loved ones. Humanity first. I've been saying that for years.

SPEAKER_02 54:36

That's a good point. That's a really good point.

SPEAKER_04 54:41

It's a good way to live. That's the inner peace. When you put each other's first, you have the inner peace.

SPEAKER_02 54:49

And we're more alike than we realize.

SPEAKER_04 54:51

Yes, we are. Well, it's like they look just like Cuba's except they spoke English.

SPEAKER_02 54:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 54:58

That's the way that a child sees it. That's the way that I see it.

SPEAKER_02 55:01

You know, if we saw the world the way kids do, it would be a different world, wouldn't it?

SPEAKER_04 55:09

Yeah, that child is still inside you. I'm telling you right here, you can feel that again if only you want to. There has to be a want for you to feel and put your prejudices aside.

SPEAKER_02 55:26

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, Mario, thank you. Thank you so much. This was such a beautiful conversation.

Where To Find The Book

SPEAKER_04 55:37

Well, thank thank you for having me. It was good for me to thank. Thank you for bringing those questions. Thank you for making me remember one more time. Why it was a beautiful trip.

SPEAKER_02 55:53

How can people find your books and uh The Journey Back into the Vault and search of my faded Cuban childhood footprints? Or do you have a website?

SPEAKER_04 56:05

Yeah, I I have a website as mariocartaya.com. You can go there. You can also go to Amazon. You can also go to uh any major bookstore and they'll have the book. In English and Spanish, by the way, there is a Spanish version called La Bóveda. Okay. So anybody doesn't speak English, or they do speak Spanish, and you want to look at uh a boy that grew up uh on this trip, um, yeah, that book in Spanish exists. It's called La Bóveda. B-O-V-E-D-A.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

Okay. Mario, your book reminds us that your past doesn't disappear just because time moves forward. It also proves that it doesn't disappear just because we can't remember it. Sometimes parts of our story wait patiently for us to come back and find them. And that little boy, I think he was waiting for you all that time. Journey back into the vault is a powerful reminder that healing can come from that most unexpected place, like walking down a childhood street that you thought you would never see again, or going to your grave sites of your grandparents and experiencing them and putting all those pictures on the gravestones. Oh my gosh, what a beautiful, beautiful moment. Thank you for sharing your story and your journey of rediscovering with us today. And to everyone listening, maybe this conversation made you think about your own story, your own memories, your own roots. Sometimes the parts of ourselves that we've forgotten are the very ones that help us understand who we truly are. Please get Mario's book and look for the one that's coming out. And maybe this will help you connect with your own past and help you on a road to discovery. As I always say here on Real Talk with Tina and Anne, there is purpose in the pain and there's hope in the journey. And we will see you next time.