"Ya viene llegando"

Today is Cuba's Solidarity Day.

It's a day to think of José Martí, Pedro Luis Boitel, Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet and the other political prisoners dying in the castro's dungeons and the Cubans that for half a century have remained as the only individuals in the Western hemisphere that do not have free elections.

It's a day to think of the freedom that ya viene llegando.

A day to shed some tears and get emotional. Why not?

A day to say "Thank you", for moments like this and op/ed like this.

It's a day when I have come to terms with my own memory, remembering how back in Cuba, at school or elsewhere, I reached a point when I would repeat the National Anthem just like a mechanical puppet.

I never felt, as I did today while watching the homeage to Cuban political prisoners at the White House, the chills and the knot in my throat when "El Himno de Bayamo" was being sung.

I think that never before I've paid that much attention to the lyrics of our National Anthem as I did today.

Today is a day to do all that and much more.

Because tomorrow, the struggle must go on.