In the mid 1970s, I was a student at the University of South Florida, and in late 1975, I had finally made peace with my attractions to men. Looking around, I realized that there were only two ways to "be" gay, either living in terror of who would find out and what they will do in response, or taking the high road and being what we now call "out and proud."
After a lifetime of abuse and neglect, constant rumors and other forms of harassment for just being "me" I knew that any form of hiding was futile, so I took the high road and came out in empowerment and strength. My relationship with God helped. Christians are by nature delusional. It is central to the religion, and the experience of knowing Christ. My baptism vows demanded that I live a life of integrity and passion for justice, I didn't see any exceptions to that for being "queer" in the Episcopal Prayer Book.
USF Student I.D. 1977
I quickly got involved with the Gay & Lesbian coalition at USF, and there I met Martha, or "Martica" as her family called her. Martha was Cuban American, her story echoed the thousands of Cuban refugees from Castro who now called Florida "home." One exception was that her mother, also Martha, had lived with her best friend and Martha's God mother for over twenty years. Carmen was what any of us would call a dyke. She had broad shoulders, a large and powerful body for a woman, she loved sports, had a deep voice, smoked cigars and was full of life. Martha's mother thought their relationship was a secret, which was laughable, except that when Martica told her mother she was a Lesbian, she freaked out. Such was the level of her own internalized homophobia.
Martha and Carmen had reared Martha's three children in South Miami Heights, a working class enclave, then at the edge of the constantly sprawling greater Miami. They got up at 4 AM, were at work 35 miles away by 7, and were elated that "Little Martha" was in college on a full scholarship.
Martha wanted to go see her family, but her Toyota had been in a minor accident and the frame was bent, so she asked me if I would drive her to Miami for Labor Day weekend of 1976. I had a new to me car, a Renault 16 that was begging for a road trip, so off we went.
A Renault 16 like mine, which was this color as well. One of the best "road cars" ever made.
Our first stop in Miami was her long time mentor, Piedad Ferrer Robertson. Piedad had been Martha's English instructor at Miami Dade South Campus. Their friendship started when Martha in Spanish told a group of friends that "Mrs. Robertson" and her class were B.S., "something they make Cubans take because they don't like us." Piedad did not reveal her Cuban lineage to her students, not wanting the Cuban ones to think they had an advantage. She had learned English as a child, had a slight British accent, so her students presumed she was from the UK.
So as Martha dug the hole deeper and deeper in the back of the classroom, Mrs. Robertson while exiting, stopped, looked Martha directly in the eye, and said (in perfect Spanish) "I find your comments about me and this class quite interesting. Please stop by my office so we can discuss them sometime."
Once Martha had collected herself off the floor, a friendship began, as well as a deep admiration once Martha found out who this mysterious woman was.
"Martica" 1976
But that weekend, we strolled into the sprawling home, and after a fleeting introduction, a car horn honked outside, and Martha said, "Oh, my ride is here, all of you have fun, I'll be back later." "Later" turned out to be two days later, and I was left to fend for myself with Piedad, Bud (her husband), children Tati, Augustine, Billy and youngest daughter Dee Dee. In addition, Bud's mother "Ghia" lived in what had been the maid's quarters off the kitchen. To fill out the mix, there were three Bassett hounds, cats, ducks and an occasional snapping turtle living on the property.
Piedad and "Bud" (William Leonard Robertson)
The property itself was delightfully "Old Miami", an acre and half, planted in mango trees and other tropical plants, ficus trees and bananas. The house itself had been built for a former central american dictator in exhile. It was one floor, situated at an angle to catch the breeze off of Biscayne Bay. The living/dining room was paneled in wood, in the same square as the kitchen, all of which had twelve foot high ceilings and awning style windows. A long hallway led to the master bedroom. along the forty foot long hallway, bedrooms were on the south side, two bathrooms, two closets and a reading alcove were on the north side, all designed to let breezes blow through easily. The central air-conditioning units had "died' early on after moving in, and there was scarce money to repair them, even scarcer money to run them, so Ghia had a wall air conditioner, and Bud and Piedad had a window unit where one of the awning windows had once been. On the many hot nights, all of the children grabbed sleeping bags and pillows from their bedrooms and fled to either end of the house. Some of my favorite images of the Robertson's family life were going into the bedroom late at night, or early in the morning and seeing parents on the king sized bed, with a dog or two, surrounded by at least four children (often others were spending the night as guests) and a couple more dogs, and a few cats, all spread out on the floor around the bed.
In Family Systems Therapy, we delineate how families see themselves. Northern European families (Germans, English, French, etc.) tend to view "family" in terms of the nuclear family. Most of the rest of the world does not. Most cultures, most notably Southern Europeans (Spanish, Italian, Greek, etc.) as well as Middle Eastern view "family" in terms of extended family.
For me, coming from a family that is basically a collection of "lone wolves", bastards, and orphans, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. I took to this world immediately, and felt very blessed to be a part of it. I not only survived the weekend, but thrived in it.
For the next two years, I took all of my school breaks in Miami, splitting my time between the Landaus (Jewish friends whose father was a Rabbi) and the Robertsons. I was handy with tools, they weren't, so I brought my toolbox and did minor repairs in both houses. Some of my favorite moments in my entire life were spent in Piedad's kitchen, helping her cook, talking about life and the negotiation of at times tricky human landscape. The Ferrer's had been at the center of Cuban society. Piedad's father Horacio was an internationally renowned ophthalmologist and signator of the 1940 Cuban constitution. Her older sister, Olga Ferrer, M.D. had carried on that tradition and also lived in Miami.
Piedad herself is a person who is defined by miracles. I was told by someone a story that Piedad was a late in life baby, conceived two years after her mother had gone through menopause, and a neighbor prophesied the birth from a vision in a dream. She has this quality about her, she sort of "floats" above the ground, surrounded by a very bright light.
The women of the family all seem to have this magic about them. It is indescribable, but quite tangible. I also met her sister Bertha and we were very close. Bertha was an MSW in Connecticut who came for winter visits. She told me a story about how she escaped Castro. In her 20s, she was engaged to a young man, the marriage plans had been made, when a mysterious and painful cough beset her and would not go away. Her doctor delivered a chilling diagnosis, Tuberculosis. In the early 1950s, the only treatment, going to a "sanitarium" in the United States for six months or longer. In response to her protests about her impending "society" wedding, which included a sit down dinner for 1,000, the doctor was clear, "You can do whatever you want to do, but if you don't go for treatment now, you'll be dead in three months."
Bertha Ferrer, "The General" 1976
Bertha hauled herself home, to her deeply spiritual mother. "You only have two choices my daughter. You can see this as an imposition on your life, or you can see it as an opportunity to grow closer to God. " Without much enthusiasm, she canceled the wedding and went to the sanitarium. She responded to treatment quickly, and near the end of it, heard that her dashing groom had eloped with the woman he was actually having sex with while engaged to Bertha. "So he was a gold digger?" she posed to God in her prayers, "Why did I have to go through all this to find that out?" No answer came, at least not right away.
She returned to Cuba and went on with her life, Batista fell and Castro came into power. Bertha, whose family nickname was "The General" was not a fan of the impending communism that was flooding into the country. As usual, she had no discretion about proclaiming her concerns and disappointment with a man she had known since they were children, who had promised free elections and a restoration of the constitution her father had signed. Friends advised her, "Bertha, you'd better leave Cuba" and her response was, "I've known Fidel since we were in kindergarten."
Those connections didn't help, and soon she found herself in jail, held on political charges. In her prayers she asked God for help, "I got myself into this mess, can you please help me get out of it?" The answer came in the morning. A chill went through the jail and her body, she coughed, and the "light bulb" went off in her head. She called the jailer, "Get me something for my cough" she asked. "It's nothing serious, I just need some cough syrup." All the while mimicking the tuberculosis she had once had, telling the doctor of pains and symptoms that had come and gone a decade earlier, while saying, "It's nothing serious." The doctor thinking she had tuberculosis, and remember she was still a beloved person for many in the country, ordered her into a hospital, under guard, which was quietly "bought off" so that her escape to an embassy for political asylum could be arranged.
Piedad herself had testified on behalf of Huber Matos (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huber_Matos), one of Fidel's supporters who had decided to leave the revolution when it turned communist. All of those who came to testify on his behalf were arrested shortly after. So, this woman who had also given her early life to the cause of "freedom" found herself delivering her first child with a group of soldiers in the waiting room to arrest her as soon as she was finished. The doctors got a nurse to continue screaming as if in labor, while Piedad was smuggled to an embassy. Her child had to stay behind, no papers, no birth certificate, and other complications. So the baby was smuggled from relative to relative, at one point, the soldiers arrived to search Olga's house. Quickly Olga put Tati on top of a bag of garbage, told her to be quiet, put more trash on top, and met them at the door. "I was just taking this garbage out, go on in" she said. One of many close calls, many stories of how brave people thwarted the dictator during those early dark days.
Piedad and Tati got to Miami, spending their first months living in a one bedroom house in "LIttle Havana" with 35 other people, sleeping in shifts. They could not work legally as officially we were still "friends" with Cuba, so they were in the U.S. on Tourist Visas. Every day the women went to the fishing expedition docks and waited. The tourists would return with the fish they caught, pose for a photo to take back home, and then toss the fish (which did not travel well back to the north). The women cleaned out the dumpster and returned home with dinner.
Piedad went to her first job interview in a borrowed dress, borrowed heels, and 25 cents for the bus, one way. First told that her immigration papers were not in order, she spent half the day getting them resolved. When she returned, she was told, "Sorry, we've filled all the positions." After a good cry in the restroom, some fresh make up, she returned and asked for a minute with the man who was directing the program. A minute turned into an hour, as she charmed him, and convinced him that she knew all about the testing instrument they would be using. With her perfect English and obvious self assurance, he hired her to run the whole project. She stepped out into the night air (the sun had gone down) and realized she had no way home, and no one to call for a ride. While walking the three miles back to the house, she found herself on a drawbridge when the bell went off. A heel stuck in the grate, she had to flee, upon returning the borrowed shoe was gone, so she walked home barefoot.
But that job launched her career, one which has been fraught with controversy, accomplishment and accolades as a world class educator, insisting that students will rise to standards if they are set, and the importance of setting them.
More about Piedad F. Robertson can be found by doing a "Google" search.
A brief Biography was published by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/college/faculty/coll_pres_robertsonbio.html
I moved to Miami in 1978, and the week I arrived, a new building was being dedicated at Miami Dade South. The college had a week of events to honor the board member the building was named for, and Piedad planned a reception on her beautiful lawn, among the mangos and orchids that her husband Bud loved growing. I went over to help her with the preparations. Since it was humid and hot off the charts, the event would be held outside on the lawn.
Wicker chairs and tables, pink table clothes, a bar and bar tender were all being set up. A very cloudy sky, dripping with moisture, offered threat of rain. I asked her, "What are you going to do if it rains?" Her response, "I'm an old catholic. God and I worked it out years ago, I do the best I can and he takes care of the rest. It's not going to rain." We finished and I returned to the Landau's home about a half hour before the party was to begin at 6PM.
Piedad in her kitchen in Miami 1976
At exactly 6PM, the heavens opened up and buckets of water fell from the sky. I turned on the TV which had a special "weather alert" describing massive squalls going across south Florida, localized flooding, lightening, etc. I thought, "Poor Piedad, all that planning, I hope it wasn't too awful."
A couple of days later I went to see her and asked her about the party, "It was fine, we had a great time." I queried, "Didn't you have to drag everything in when it rained?" She looked at me very puzzled, "What rain? It "spit" a couple of times, but it never rained." I said, "Piedad, it poured all over south Florida that night, I saw it on radar on TV, they issued an alert, everything." Her puzzled look softened a bit, "Well, now that you mention it, a couple of guests, who came from different directions, DID mention that it was pouring rain until they got about a half mile from my house." We both looked up, she winked that little girl wink that so charms all of us, and that was it.
About a week later, my Master's degree arrived in the mail. I was using their address until I settled in. I opened the envelope and gazed at the paper which represented so much. I had been paddled at school and beaten at home for poor academic performance, had failed the tenth grade, was told I would never get into college, much less graduate. My father had refused to fund my endeavors after the first two years, so I had lived as a pauper for four years, and had nightmares of them taking it away on some technicality, enduring all to get this small piece of paper. I let out a classic "Rebel Yell" to exclaim my personal victory. Piedad emerged to see what was the disturbance in her kitchen. I waved the diploma, "It's official, I got it."
She looked at me, with deep affection and said, "What's the big deal, God gave you intelligence and good health. You've simply done what you were supposed to do." It was in that moment that my world view began to change away from feeling "victim" to understanding the mind set of people who accomplish things, no matter what. For all my struggles, that simple comment has propelled me far beyond any expectations my small town beginnings had offered.
Husband Bud, and wife Piedad both had challenging first marriages. Both first spouses were at best incapable of much beyond flaming narcissism. They met because one night after work at Lindsey Hopkins Education center, Bud's motorcycle wouldn't start. She offered him a ride home, and they have been together ever since. Piedad had two children, Bud had one, and they both had Dee Dee. Later they adopted Piedad's X husband's daughter Michelle.
Michelle, Dee Dee, Piedad and Virginia (niece) in the Santa Monica Kitchen, Thanksgiving 2011
I have an equally deep friendship with Bud, whose wit and insights are always delightful. Bud is truly the "wind beneath" Piedad's wings. And she is the delight of his life. Bud and I spent many hours fixing lawn mowers, changing the oil in the old Mercedes, installing a new cooktop after his mother broke the old one, and he mixes a mean bourbon and water.
With my mother Edna in 2002, for her 90th birthday
They followed me to California, but after two decades here, they returned to Miami last year, and I miss them beyond articulation. They have been very busy settling into their new home in Miami, Bud is almost 90, and his hearing is such that he can't talk on the phone much anymore.
But I have been very blessed to have been an honorary Ferrer for all these years, a part of such a warm and loving family.
"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched, they must be felt with the heart." "Life is either a daring adventure or nothing."~ Helen Keller
