Yesterday, I posted a brief eulogy in honor of my father, Don Francisco Guerra, who died at the age of 80 earlier this week. Today, I began writing up a more formal obituary in his honor; below is what I have so far:

With the death of my father, a little piece of his beloved Cuba has been lost to us forever. Don Francisco was born on 16 October 1943 in the Cuban province of Matanzas. He grew up there, the youngest of seven siblings–six brothers and one sister–but his childhood came to an abrupt end in January 1959 when a group of bearded revolutionaries seized power. Once it became clear that this so-called revolution was just a pretext for dictatorship, young Francisco, still an idealistic teenager, decided without hesitation to fight for Cuba’s freedom. He joined the legendary Brigade 2506 (Brigada de Asalto 2506) as soon as he turned 18, was assigned to the 6th Battalion under the command of Francisco Montiel Rivera, and like a Cuban Quijote fought to liberate his country in April of 1961.

Alas, the ill-fated amphibious “Bay of Pigs” invasion ended in a bitter defeat, and while the reasons for this military failure are debated to this day, the one thing I can tell you for sure is that the band of brothers who fought for Cuba’s freedom felt betrayed, especially after October of 1962, when it was rumored that President John F. Kennedy had pledged to never invade the Island again in exchange for the permanent removal of Russian missiles from her shores.

Worse yet, these men were now put in a difficult and dreadful position: they would never be able to return to their homes or regular lives, at least not while Fidel and his brother Raul were still in power, so they would have to start a new life in a new country. In the case of my father, that meant leaving Miami, which at the time was a small city filled with many Cuban spies and saboteurs, and going west. During his westward journey, he met my mother in Abilene, Texas, and they relocated to Los Angeles, California, where they were married in a simple civil ceremony on 27 December 1963. It was here, in Los Angeles, where my father had to start a new life …