When at the age of six I sat down to compose my autobiography, the first sentence I pieced together was about my grandfather waking me up in the morning with his Spanish greeting — Cristófalo, arriba. Pet name for Chris. Up. Playfully, in that way that only an old man can pull off.

Because I was very young and still understood the things that one understands while young, I started my autobiography with the start of a normal day. At that age, the story of a single day is the story of a lifetime. Without large worries to bind together far-off points between weeks and months, existence is segmented into the clusters of tiny routines that each comprise a full sleep-wake period. Warmth of blankets. Soap bubbles catching morning light. The feel of crayon wax under fingernails. Bed at nine. Each morning my life began with my grandfather's greeting.

When Castro's revolution trickled out of the jungles to its absurd fruition in the capital, my grandfather was a sergeant in Batista's army. He was not involved directly in the fighting but by association he was a relic of an overthrown regime whose echoes needed to be snuffed out. Sometimes one must make snap decisions: instead of spending years in prison or facing a firing squad, my grandfather gathered up his wife and daughter and put all three of them on a plane to Miami.

First-generation immigrants can never become fully assimilated into their new culture. Residues of an already-lived life are not removed by passing time or by changes in environment, because people cling most ardently to the subtle framework in which they grew to maturity. Don't believe me? Take a whiff of the perfume your mother wore when you were in kindergarten. Listen to your dad's favorite song. Feel your heart stop over remembered feelings which are miracles of banality. Now multiply this by a thousand. A million. Enough to shelter your every thought and move. Now imagine the vacuum that is left behind when they are taken away, then the desperation to fill it that follows like a shockwave.

Sometime during the flight over, my grandfather decided that when Castro died he would return to Cuba and resume his old life. In the meantime, because he knew nothing else and because he projected a short stay, he would live his life in the United States as much as he could as though he were still in Havana, so that the beat of his cultural rhythm would not be disturbed too much.

When I was six years old my grandfather had lived in the United States for over thirty years and barely spoke a word of English.

Long after my grandfather breathed his last breaths I kept the old Cuban cigar boxes he would keep on top of his dresser. I did not recognize the logos on the boxes and had no knowledge of what made a cigar a good cigar but knew that the smell was of him, and whenever I wanted to return I could stick my face in the cigar box and suddenly there he was.

I did not understand until later that he had arranged his entire life to fit the same purpose: to recover lost time. The Obi of Eshu he had in an armoire in the bedroom that he would spit rum at once a week. Saints' candles burning on top of the television. Florida water. An ancient statue of the Caridad del Cobre, in which the saintess overlooks three praying fishermen in a skiff that is forever suspended on a bright porcelain wave. The saintess of Cuba and men in a short and vicious storm. This irony was lost on me until recently.

When he found himself without the Cuba where he had grown up he built a smaller one in his apartment in Orange County.

Of course, my grandfather failed in his vow to outlive Castro. By that time, the Spanish he had taught me had mostly rusted away from disuse. In our family I was not an exception: his eulogy was given both in English and in Spanish for those who had been born here and had no use for the old language.

Meanwhile, his brothers and sisters who had also come over and who had lasted this long under the same vow shifted a little during the English service, not understanding a word. I heard an unknown great uncle perhaps comment on the shirt he'd chosen to wear in his coffin — in this country it passes for dressy but in Cuba it would have been a shirt to wear for dancing, and on a young man would have wagged tongues in Havana like palm leaves in the tropic wind.