The heroes with time appear quasi-hieratic. Many times comparable with bronze or marble, also with oil paintings of great dimensions made by a skilled craftsman.
The sacrifice of heroism for the good of the country, according to the apostle José Martí, sometimes overlaps other palpitations of those who save peoples. This letter from Antonio Maceo Grajales is one of those insufficiently treated edges, and unparalleled sensitive.
[Faithful and purest wife: María Cabrales. March 1895]
“On your journey as on mine, full of thistles and thorns, difficulties will arise that only your virtue will be able to overcome.
Confident, then, in that your most important quality, I abandon you for our homeland, which, as afflicted as you, demands my services, crying in the death rattle of agony. I think that you suffering, and I fighting for her, we will be happy; you love her independence, and I adore her freedom. Duty commands me to shake off the yoke that oppresses and vexes her, and your love of a faithful and purest wife leads me to her redemption. God willing, for the good of that slave people and for the peace of our spirits. You, who have lived through the horrors of that murderous war with me, know better than anyone how much the sacrifice of abandoning yourself for it is worth, how much duty to honest men matters. Honor is above all. The first time we fought together for freedom; now it is necessary that I fight for the two of us. If I win, the glory will be for you.
[TO. Maceo]
Some words
As of March 1895, Antonio Maceo left Puerto Limón, Costa Rica, aboard the Adirondack for Cuba. The Bronze Titan wrote other epistles of similar content. While in the battlefied, at fifty years of age he says goodbye to his Mary, “Receive the heart of your husband who adores and desires you.” Then at their 29th wedding anniversary he writes to her “Our souls and our bodies, he seems to tell her, should be fused in a strong and eternal embrace.”
On June 14th, 1845, a champion was born who carried the courage of many. The integrity of him delineated one of the most transcendental personalities in the country’s history. He is universally valued as one of the most lucid men at the time.
Translated by: Aileen Álvarez García
