“Siempre adelante.” “Always forward.” That’s what my father-in-law said to our son each morning as the boy left for school. He said it to instill confidence and a positive outlook on life. That advice came from the depths of his being. “Siempre adelante” could easily have been a motto for Papi’s life. He wasn’t one to look back.

Papi was born the twelfth of thirteen children, the third of four boys, in Havana, Cuba. He was raised by his mother, whom he revered, and his older sisters, after his mother kicked his father out. This action made a middle-class family suddenly poor, but his mother kept them going with hard work and a positive attitude—attributes she passed on to her son.

He determined, for some reason, to become a doctor and studied hard. Despite the family’s lack of resources, he was able to attend the University of Havana, where tuition was free. Still, his dream of medicine seemed shattered when a long strike and a harsh government response shut down the university. Papi didn’t mope. He didn’t look back. He got a job. And when the university reopened, he went back to school.

He finally got his degree and began to practice. He learned to practice surgery even though he was left-handed and all the surgical instruments were made for right-handed practitioners. He became a skilled doctor, first as an OB/GYN and then, when politics forced him to make a change, he moved on and became a neurosurgeon. Papi didn’t care. He looked ahead, at the goal, not back, at the obstacle.

He married, and he and his wife had three children. They lived a wonderful life, raising their family and enjoying good times with friends. They planned to build a house.

All that came apart, of course, when Fidel came. Papi had not been a Batista supporter and, in fact, had been imprisoned for political activities years before. But in Castro’s words and actions, he smelled a rat. He tried to get the family out of Cuba, but the government would not grant him permission to go. Angered by the show trials and executions, concerned over the increasing government control of people’s lives, alarmed by the prospect that their two sons were nearing compulsory military age, he and Mami made the wrenching decision to send their children to the U.S. while they remained in Cuba.

For the next five years, Papi and Mami looked forward to the day they could be with their children again. As the kids grew up in a tantalizingly unreachable neighboring land, husband and wife tried everything they could to get themselves out of the country and reunite the family. Finally, after five years, they received some luck and were able to legally emigrate. Of course, they had to leave everything behind.

When Papi arrived in the U.S., he was in his early fifties. In Cuba, he had been a respected doctor. In the U.S., his medical degree and decades of experience meant absolutely nothing. He could not get a license to practice on the basis of that credential or body of knowledge. If he wanted to practice medicine again, he had to pass a licensing exam. That meant hours of study. Papi didn’t complain. He just did it. “Siempre adelante.”

His positive attitude and hard work paid off. He got his license and did his required residency, enabling him to practice medicine. He had to give up on neurosurgery. Pursuing that specialty required too many years of re-training. With two boys in college and a daughter soon to be, he needed to get to work and start earning a living. No matter: always forward.

He got a job with a large corporation as a doctor in a company clinic. Soon after, he also opened a private practice where he worked every night and on weekends. He might have been tired at the end of each week, but he never let on. He just did what he had to do. Besides, he loved doing medicine—it was his passion—and he loved the fact that the family was together again. He became interested in acupuncture, studied it, and added it to his practice. Always keep learning.

With his help, his sons went to medical and law school. When his daughter, my future wife, graduated from college, she wanted to study to become a teacher. He thought law might be better, but he didn’t stop her. Years later, she asked him why. “It was only a two-year program,” he said. “If you found you didn’t like it, it would not be hard to change.” No need to look back.

Eventually, after a decade living in New York City or northern Jersey, he found it necessary to pull up stakes again. He was in his sixties when he took a new job at a hospital in Washington, D.C. Once again, he and his wife had to start over. Once again, they did it without complaint. The kids were all grown up by this time and had families of their own, so the folks took on a new role: doting grandparents. They enjoyed that one to the hilt. Meanwhile, Papi continued to work, into his eighties. He couldn’t bring himself to stop.

He showed us all, two generation’s worth of family members, the importance of a positive attitude and a love of life. He loved poetry and music, from operas to his beloved boleros. He loved baseball, and he loved good food. He loved company, and he loved family.

Perhaps most of all, he loved his wife. Life partners for sixty-one years, they lived into their nineties. The last years were difficult, as heart trouble weakened her and senile dementia began robbing him of his essential self. Their last year of life, they were forced to live separately, he in a nursing home and she with us.

She died first. When he was told, he snapped out of his mental fog to say “Mami’s gone? What are we going to do now?”

In truth, he knew just what to do. The next day, his system began to break down. Three days later, he died. He passed just in time for the two of them to be buried together. As our son said when we gave him the news about Papi, “I know it’s sad, but I can’t help but smile. It’s so perfect that they should go together!”

Bless you, Papi.