ARIZONA DAILY STAR
October 12, 2005
Opinion by Humberto Cruz:
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/business/97382.php
Amid the misery and destruction brought by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita,
with so many lives shattered and families displaced, the question I've
heard many news commentators ask is a natural one: After you've lost
everything, how do you start again?
From the enduring lessons that my late parents taught me, I would say it
is with patience and perseverance, with faith and courage, and by taking
one step at a time.
Let me make it clear that I don't pretend to know what Ka-trina and Rita
survivors have gone and are going through.
Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne did hit my hometown of Vero Beach, Fla.,
last year, but damage to our home was minor.
My personal "hurricane" was political - when I was a teenager living
with my parents, we left everything we had in our native Cuba to seek a
life of freedom in the United States.
The older I get, the more deeply I realize the immense sacrifice my
parents made in leaving and making sure I did not grow up under a
communist dictatorship. In their mid-40s, with just a working knowledge
of English, they left behind the life they knew and the new middle-class
home they had worked so hard to afford.
We arrived in this country in 1960 with literally the clothes on our
backs and a total of $300 in cash, plus the promise of a job for my
father with Texaco in Kansas City, Mo.
Our story is hardly unique, of course. Millions of refugees from Cuba
and other countries have done the same. Despite our financial struggles,
this was a time we treasure because it brought our family closer
together and taught us life lessons that still serve us well.
Among the things we learned to do:
● Recognize and accept reality, and go from there.
Cherishing memories is good, even therapeutic. Dwelling in the past is
not, unless it is to learn from mistakes. On that score, I still get
plenty of e-mails from readers who lost a big chunk of their retirement
savings to the 2000-2002 bear market. Rather than try to "get even" by
clinging to the same risky investments that did them in, they need to
come up with an appropriate and well-diversified asset allocation based
on what they have now, not what they had then.
● Better ourselves.
Every day brings an opportunity to learn something new and make yourself
more marketable. It can be done, a little at a time. For me, learning
English was a painful necessity at age 16, and I did it partly by
getting through an article in Reader's Digest each evening,
English-Spanish dictionary in hand.
This nightly exercise, a kind of self-imposed homework, nurtured my love
of language. Today, after nearly 40 years as a professional writer, I
still go to the dictionary most days (English-only this time) looking
for nuances in meaning and searching for the right word.
● Build on small goals.
For my parents, saving for months to afford badly needed new mattresses
was a highlight of our first year in the United States. For me, it was
saving (after contributing my share to the family expenses) from my
$1-an-hour job at the high-school cafeteria to buy an Orquesta Aragon
Cuban cha-cha long-playing album. (I still have that music, now on
compact disc.)
Saving for those two purchases taught me more about financial discipline
than anything else. Over time, the goals became more ambitious - the
first starter home for my wife, Georgina, and me in 1978, for example; a
larger home in 1985; retirement from full time at work in 2000; and a
new beachside home in Vero Beach in 2001.
But the method and the discipline - set a goal and a deadline for
accomplishing it, put a price tag and set money aside regularly to pay
for it - never changed.
● Share with others less fortunate, and grow.
As a teenager in Kansas City, on a frightfully cold and windy Christmas
Eve, I walked with our parish priest, knocking on doors and giving out
toys to needy children from Cuban refugee families who had arrived after
we did.
My fingers and feet numb, I wanted to go back to the church where it was
warm; the priest kept saying "one more," over again.
"One more" became at least 20 more stops. I experienced that night the
joy of giving - and learned that the seemingly most arduous and
difficult task can always be done, "one more" thing at a time.
● Contact Humberto Cruz at
AskHumberto@aol.com or in care of Tribune Media Services, 435 N.
Michigan Ave., Suite 1500, Chicago, IL 60611.