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Ana Cecilia Abalo🌊🌅🐢

@_anaabalo

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Him First!🤍 @adpiuf @anas_food.pics @buchholzyounglife

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Need a nap

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Just a (g) little late!

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What’s not to love??

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And they were roommates!

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Lucky to call @adpiuf home

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walking on sunshine with @adpiuf

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San Miguel do Campo. Galicia.

My great-grandfather José María Cid was born here, in this tiny village in northwestern Spain, in 1884.

Not much is known about his life here. We know from birth records that he was the son and grandson of labradores. The details of this period of his life are lost to time, but the history surrounding it is well established. Around the turn of the twentieth century, poverty, scarce and fragmented farmland, and limited opportunities drove hundreds of thousands of gallegos across the Atlantic in search of a better life.

Around the age of 20, José María became one of them. He left for Cuba with his brother, leaving behind their family and the fields that had been home for generations. Like many emigrants, he may have imagined that his voyage was temporary: that he would work, save, and one day return home, successful and respected.

Like many emigrants, he never did.

His destiny was in the Americas. In Cuba, he traveled the countryside selling jewelry. He married, raised a family, and eventually owned his own jewelry store in Havana. By any outward measure, he had built the better life he went looking for.

But history doesn’t end, and it has a way of repeating itself.

A generation later, the Cuban Revolution uprooted his daughter, my grandmother, from the only country she had ever known. She left Cuba with her family, including my 14-year-old father, both believing they would one day return.

Like many emigrants, they never did. But that is another story, one worth telling on its own someday.

Now, more than 120 years after José María left this little corner of Galicia, here we are: his American great-grandson and great-great-granddaughters, guiris, standing in San Miguel do Campo.

José María could not have imagined where leaving this place would ultimately lead. His daughter and grandson could not have imagined where leaving Cuba would take them. And we cannot know what history has in store for us.

We have no idea where the story goes next. But knowing where we came from gives me confidence that, whatever the next 120 years bring, we’ll find our way.

José María never made it back home. But here we are.

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(Unfortunate) Gainsville summer enthusiast

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May, June, July and a little bit of August!! 💛💛

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What’s not to love?!

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Fishing with the familia 🎣

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Lil’ catch 🎣

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