When Kiki was a little boy and would set up a ball game with his brothers in any little piece of land, back in the Sosa neighborhood, there was only one signal that would immediately end the struggle of hitting and running: Vicenta would whistle, literally, and the line of seven children would take the road home without complaining. There was no other way.

She recalls that at that time her home was a hotbed of strong tones. The kitchen always smelled hot and there was food for whoever arrived; the living room was the space of confluences of a large family marked by the hustle and bustle, and above all, the voice of his mother, involved in a thousand different tasks and at the same time, marked the strict rhythm of each activity. No one escaped her rigor, not even Kiki because he was the youngest.

"How many times she used to show her colors in our faces? With my mother, respect was not optional. And that's where I watched her, always working, sitting at the sewing machine, doing embroidery, polishing the kitchen, or depending on who needed her. She would deliver babies, inject or pull the stomach ache out of the legs of any boy in the neighborhood who showed symptoms of stomach ailments."

Vicente Betancourt Sosa (Kiki) assures that she gave him the "assignment" to become a doctor. First an integral general practitioner and then a urologist, he has gone through medicine with the same values he learned as a child, and today he is convinced that there, at the dawn of life, is the foundation of the human being you will be later on, the one who helps or turns his back on others.

And when the doctor talks about his mother, his eyes shine and he is overwhelmed by the witticisms of the old woman, who, still at his side, looks at him as if she had not finished her job of caring for him. He does not listen well, but Vicenta Sosa Frómeta, has just turned 105 years old and they come to him among the large family that she forged with the exact mixture of rigor and affection.

I WILL NOT FORGET...

For José (Pepe), the eldest son, the memories are clearer even though he is already 86 years old and he assures that he was the one who bore the brunt of the reprimands. The pride for the lady who gracefully swings the fan invites him to defy time.

"Mom always focused on the son who needed her the most, the one who depended on her at that moment. From that, we learned the courage to face whatever came, as long as we were together."

"She divorced my father and found another partner for her life and he was so special that he ended up being our second dad. Even then, the families blended and we became one. For a long, long time we all lived together, and living together was not difficult, it was nicer."

"I don't know if they told you, but Vicenta risked her life taking food to the rebels around Bartle. She knew what it was like to go underground and she was never afraid."

"The day they killed Jesús Argüelles, that morning he was at my house. My mother insisted several times that he not go out. In the afternoon we found out that he had been murdered on the bridge of La Canoa, what rage we suffered. And Vicenta continued... For her, Fidel Castro had a symbolism, a strength that was not natural."

WITH THE GRANDCHILDREN... HONEY

For Chuchi, Jesús Betancourt, by the way, is also a physician and specialized in general surgery, Vicenta has been more often than not, honey. Rigor remained in her first line of succession, but with the grandchildren, she assures that there has never been a more spoiled grandmother.

"At any time of the night, we would hide in grandma's room and she would get up subtly, turn on the stove and make us delicious things. My grandfather was a butcher and we were always well-supplied. She was never tired or upset."

"What has characterized her most is the family, taking care of the education of grandchildren, nieces, great-nieces, and great-grandchildren. She instilled in us that we were all family through thick and thin, and that thought has been passed down from generation to generation."

"What can we say about Vicenta... She would light a cigarette and give all the males a taste, the females couldn't even get close. The nicest thing is that for as long as I can remember I have seen her smoking. At this point, I buy her cigars -and she takes out of her shirt pocket a half pack to try it. I regulate her, but at 105 years old I'm not going to take anything away from her, she just didn't have a genetic predisposition and never got sick."

"With me, she has been special. She always said I was going to be a doctor. To the point that I liked architecture more, but I already committed and fulfilled it. The five times I have been outside Cuba, on an internationalist mission, I have thought of her, of the strength she has to unite us all."

CONGRATULATIONS ON YOUR DAY...

While her children and grandchildren approach to talk about her in front of the microphone, Vicenta looks gracefully at the panorama of faces gathered on the day of her 105th birthday. She walks around the house holding on to the walker, she goes after her fan, and she looks mischievously at the white housecoat that a niece brings her as a gift.

And as if that were not enough, Vicenta recites poems, remembers the day her grandfather said goodbye on a horse, talks about her husband, about the time she shared a danzón with Barbarito Diez.

While she fans herself, she remembers those who are no longer with her, pauses for a long time, but then smiles. Among so much time it is as if she were a child again, the one in the eyes of all those whom, as a first lesson, she taught to love.

...

Vicenta brought to the world 7 children, 21 grandchildren, 30 great-grandchildren, and 17 great-great-grandchildren...