It is enough to say her name for her endearing image to appear in the memory of the people. It is enough to say "our most autochthonous flower," Heroine of Mountain and Plain, or the godmother of all, to know that in her afterlife Celia continues accompanying us as fire and truth, detail and essence... a necessary guide.
As we evoke her today, on the 103rd anniversary of her birth - May 9, 1920, in the town of Media Luna -the entire island remembers the sensitive young woman who, along with her father, vindicated the Apostle in the year of his centenary; the fearless girl who risked her life in the clandestine struggle against the dictatorship; the first female to wear the guerilla’s olive green in the Sierra Maestra, and the tireless and attentive revolutionary, always light and not shadow of Fidel.
And she is remembered even more because Celia was the very incarnation of detail, kindness, modesty and selflessness. Many are the anecdotes that reveal her incomparable trait of being concerned, and occupied, with the welfare of all.
She took bcharge of compiling the history of the guerrilla struggle on little pieces of paper, and after the triumph of January 1959, her multiple responsibilities as deputy, member of the Council of State and the Central Committee, far from separating her from the people, united her more with orphaned children, with campesinos, mothers without childcare, workers and the most needy.
Her trademark sensitivity and gentleness, her commitment to the truth, her essence so true to Martí of having much soul and little of the material, taking action without protocols, and her tireless work while never calling attention to herself, are what make us most proud of our Celia.
And it is with immense pride that we are always summoned to return to her personal example, to continue building the better nation to which we aspire, with the certainty that Celia dwells within us in the brightness of a star, in the scent of a butterfly, in the daily awakening of the Homeland, in a smile and in the storm.
