A video posted on TikTok by user @intensavibes_pas has touched thousands of people by showcasing the emotional reunion of a young Cuban woman with her aunt, after returning to the island a year after losing her mother while living abroad. The images, filled with pain and tenderness, capture a moment that many described as “a three-way hug,” referring to the absent mother.
“No one told my aunt and me that this reunion would hurt so much. I return to Cuba after a year of losing my mom while I was away. We lost the pillar that made our lives spin,” the young woman wrote about the video. In the scene, they embrace, surprising the aunt, and amid tears, they end up dancing together, as if trying to momentarily halt the weight of grief and distance.
The video has gone viral on the platform, garnering thousands of reactions and comments from users who felt a connection to the story. “The aunt hugging her sister and her niece at the same time, and the niece hugging her mom and her aunt. I felt it that way, I felt it,” wrote one user. Another summed up the collective sentiment in a phrase that many repeated: “That hug was from three.”
Among the messages are numerous stories from Cubans experiencing similar situations. “I also lost my mother and still haven't been able to return; I don't know what the reunion with my aunt will be like, I only know it will be very tough,” wrote one user. Others commented on the emotional weight of emigrating: “It’s very hard; being an emigrant takes courage,” noted another user.
Some took the opportunity to reflect on the family separations caused by Cuban exile. “Many do not know that pain or understand what we have had to endure. We live with the nostalgia of returns and the weight of absences,” wrote a woman. Another added: “So much pain has been caused by an absurd dictatorship in so many Cuban families.”
The video, which has gone viral for its sincerity and simplicity, gives a face to a reality shared by thousands of Cubans both inside and outside the country: the love that survives across distances, the grief that does not fade, and the hope of being able to embrace, even through tears, those who were left waiting on the other side.
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