Benedetti and Gardel came to my mind while María and Tony were talking. The former for "let's make a deal: I would like to count on you. It's so nice to know that you exist (...) that you know you can count on me" and the second one for the certainty that saving the distances, 30 years is nothing.
She expresses the loving presence that shelters accompany and support when she says "each one is there for the other". That is how María Caridad Sao Rodríguez and Antonio Medina Segura (Tony) walk through life since they met at the age of 22, the blonde-haired girl, and at 27, the rebellious, dreamy, restless lover; until then with an eventful walk in matters of the heart.
"The first thing he lent me was a library, in essence, Indian literature, such as the Panchatantra and Tales of the Vampire; books that I keep to this day and are part of my bedside titles," recalls who today is known for being an exponent and defender of graphic humor in Las Tunas. "She accepted me with my follies," he says, and immediately adds: "I learned to give more value to her than to myself. I learned that they are better than us, like the soil that fertilizes and, in this way, we have built our relationship and we are always thinking about working and loving each other a little bit."
He sees her and describes her as beautiful, intelligent, creative, docile, and at the same time strong; he fell in love with these essences in the hard years of the 90s when he verified, in practice, and he expresses it jocularly, that "love does not enter through the kitchen."
It offers, she adds, a lot of security and peace to know that "you have someone by your side who is for you and for whom, at the same time, you are. When you have that, you have a good traveling companion. He has reached that certainty three decades after that first day, and after having "dragged" him so many times to a literary club, having encouraged him to pursue university studies, being his accomplice in goldsmithing, his "representative" in that and other tasks, and his partner in adventures on the little train to Manatí, just for the satisfaction of seeing his offspring and nephews and nieces.
"She has been a support for my two children and has accompanied me in their education, so much so that they look for her more than me when they have something to talk about," he says.
"We got to know each other. I believe that relationships are about understanding, tolerance, and respect... we have been together longer than we had been together before we met. On this road, we have built and supported each other," reflects, in turn, the graphic humorist, writer, and professor at the University of Las Tunas.
He listens to her and returns to those early years in which he had the certainty that "it doesn't matter that they say it's trite to talk about love". In her name, they have followed each other in every dream and together they can be seen in a professional activity as well as in the daily routine of a queue or shopping at the farmers' market. "There is no doubt. There is security and a lot of peace in that feeling", argues the "guilty one" that the paintbrush of Antoms (Tony's artistic name) came to the definitive light against the current of refusals and external judgments.
As a kind of mantra without prescription, both have the idea that "life is like a mirror, if you look at it smiling, it smiles at you". They like to laugh and see that expression of joy in their similarities, they practice kindness and have the desire to be loved, in essence, they are the same as always; in their togetherness and their daily walk.
"There is no such thing as time for us. It was all yesterday, even if 30 years have passed since we first met. We do not live in abundance, but we are happy and we look better than in times of greater prosperity," he says, by way of summarizing the "good life" that accompanies them and insufflates optimism, learning, wisdom, and fullness in love.
