By Bart Jones. Newsday.com.
Staff Writer12/01/2000 - Friday - Page A 39
Jorge Febles is leaving the United States for his homeland of Cuba amazed
that he could walk almost right up to the house where the U.S. president lives,
but wracked with sadness that he never got to see his mother alive.
"Everything here is so huge, so immense, so exaggerated," Febles,
48, said in Spanish yesterday as he prepared to end his first trip outside the
Caribbean island.
Febles applied for a visa with U.S. authorities in Havana this summer
because his 70-year-old cancer-stricken mother wanted to see her only son before
she died. He had barely seen Bersabe Febles, who lived in Freeport, since the
family fled Cuba in 1968 and was forced to leave then-15-year-old Jorge behind,
hoping he would follow them soon by getting around mandated military service. He
never could.
U.S. officials denied the request, saying they feared he would stay in the
United States. After a spate of publicity about the case, the authorities
relented. But it was too late.
Febles arrived in New York on Sept. 30, three days after his mother died.
He was able to attend her funeral. And she never got her dying wish: To see
her only son one last time.
Yesterday, Febles packed into a suitcase aspirin, Izod and Bill Blass
shirts, toy cars that fascinate him and dolls for his 4-year-old daughter. He is
scheduled to leave tonight, four months before his six-month visa expires.
He says his wife, two children and government job driving a truck can't wait
any longer.
He and his relatives in this country have spent the last two months mourning
and reuniting at the same time. "He is taking sad moments with him, but by
the same token good times," said his sister, Ibis Pozo of Freeport.
In their mother's honor, the family took Febles to her favorite places:
Washington, D.C., Atlantic City, Miami, Disney World, the family's second home
in Cape Coral, Fla., and upstate New York, where they went apple picking.
Febles said he was flabbergasted that Americans know where their president
lives and can even walk right up to the gates outside the White House. In Cuba,
almost no one knows where Fidel Castro lives, since he keeps moving to avoid
possible assassination attempts.
In Freeport, Febles often went out in the yard at night to gaze at the
stars, but was amazed by the number of airplanes soaring overhead. "Here
there's just as much traffic in the sky as on the ground," he said. New
York City at night simply left him breathless, with so many lights it "looks
like it's daytime." The trip would have made their mother happy, said Pozo.
"I really think she is resting in peace ...We are doing everything she
wanted us to do."
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