Miel Para Oshun (Honey for Oshun)

Years ago, when I worked in the prisons of New York State, I ran a Transpersonal Counseling Program. Carefully selected movies were one of the tools I used to help prisoners and inmates to get in touch with themselves, in order to help them become freer (mentally, emotionally, spiritually). Well crafted movies can do to that. Well crafted movies are a form of art that can help to heal. Miel Para Oshun (Honey for Oshun) is one of those movies that touches the heart and the soul. It was one of those movies that touched my soul.

Filmed in Cuba it tells the story of a man in his late 30's, who returns to Cuba to find his mother whom he last saw as a very young boy. Thirty-two years earlier he was taken by his father on a raft, headed North to the States (he was one of the balseros). His mother did not make the risky journey with them. The boy was told his mother did not want to go and when they reached the US, the boy is raised by his father. Due to US-Cuba relations the boy can not return to Cuba to visit his mother. But he has always questioned why his mother would abandon him.  Fast forward, his father dies and the now grown man sets out on journey to find his mother and get the answers he seeks..

 As my girls get older, and start to ask more questions about my history and where I come from,  I will have to explain to them, the abandonment by my mother. I will explain adoption and what that meant in my life. I will explain what the yearning for my (earth) mother meant to me and how it deeply effected the course of the first twenty-two years of my life.

I will tell my girls about my history but I may also show them Miel Para Oshun because it speaks my story.  I spent six years searching for my own mother, only to find out she had died in 1970. I was born in 1968. I had never thought much of my biological father but with my mother long dead, I sought him out. I had no idea of what I would discover. I found my Cuban-American father living in Miami, along with a Cuban born grandmother and sisters who are all deeply rooted in the Cuban-Miami/Key West culture. And while these Cuban roots were a complete surprise (being part Cuban never crossed my mind), it made total sense. That my grandmother was also half Chinese was equally surprising but validating. For all the unknown DNA that ran through me, these cultures were a part of me. Many adopted people can attest to the power of feeling drawn to things that would seem out of the ordinary. For me, my deep pull towards the Caribbean and socialist leanings made so much sense the day I opened that door in Miami and met my family.

In Meil Para Oshun, the  viewer can see and feel what life is like in Cuba. The movie clearly portrays the people, their strength, their passion and their expressive way of life. I saw myself in the Cuban people. For most of my childhood I marched to a different beat. Now I realized it was a Caribbean, Latin Beat. 

The movies portrayal of the mixed blessings of migration and life in the US, at the sacrifice of losing a mother, is sad and deep. That politics plays a roll in the inability for reunion between mother and child is not only sad but an outrage. It is not surprising that in my life, pre-family discovery, I had strong political feelings when it came to oppression and freedom.

But overall this is a movie about the longing and searching for one's mother and her love, which I know all too well. My searching for answers was a way to know myself better. To answer the questions I had about my birth, my past; to make sense of the story I had told myself about who I was and how I would be in this life. This longing and searching not only impacted my early life but has been a major force in my parenting with Amara and Havana. I have made many efforts to make sure my daughters know who I am, from their journals and scrapbooks and now this blog. I want them to always be able to access a part of me, if for some reason I am no longer on this earth.

I have been to Cuba twice, as part of my post-search journey. It's a mixed bag of emotions how I feel about the Cuban culture, the revolution and my people. My travels there also made me realize how much my upbringing impacted who I was; that those who raised me influenced me as much as the natural drives within me. And when my adopted father passed before my second daughter was born I followed Jewish tradition in naming her (using the first initial of the deceased name). Havana, it combined the love of my (adopted) father and the love of my roots.

I highly recommend this film. It is a very powerful film about one man's story that can relate to us all; Lose, Wondering, Longing, Searching. And if the time comes, and I want to have another way (other than my voice) to share with my girls what makes their mother tick, I will pick Miel Para Oshun for movie night. Because movies can, and often do, tell our story for us, sometimes better than we can.



My birth mother, Susan Blizzard (r), maternal
grandmother Ruth, & half-brother Bobby.
Mid 1960's, Key West.

Susan, late 1960's
Even though Susan was dead,  just seeing what she looked like was enough.
We look eerily alike. (and yes, she was a natural blond!)

My birth father, David Ramirez.
Late 1960's



In Bayamo, Cuba, where my grandmother Melba was born.
2000

Mi familia.
Bayamo, Oriente, Cuba 2000

With maternal (half) siblings, Kim & Bobby.
Bay Area, 2009

With my grandma Melba & younger half-sister, Natalie.
Miami, late 1990's